By Jaythaleela K
MIRI, Oct 3: The perimeter surveying works on Native Customary Rights (NCR) land carried out by the State government is not seasonal but a continuous effort to recognise and safeguard the people’s rights on NCR land, says Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hasan.
He said, the surveying works has been carried out since 1960’s to 2010 to ensure the issuance of land titles to landowners of their NCR land.
“For the period of 50 years, since 1960 to 2010 we have covered 260,000 hectares (642,460 acres) of NCR land. However, the output using the old method is not very encouraging, an average 5,200 hectares of NCR land that were measured for the period of one year compared to the new initiative for NCR Land Survey programme,” he said prior to the presentation of 362 NCR land titles under Section 18 to 265 owners from two villages namely Kampung Nusah and Kampung Sebalik Tiris here.
According to Awang Tengah, from 2010 until now, the Land and Survey Department has managed to survey an area of approximately 999,853 hectares or 2.47 million acres.
Out of that total area, 776,226 hectares or 1.9 million acres has been gazetted using the the new initiative for NCR Land Survey programme.
“Just imagine the difference of the output using the new initiative NCR land survey programme compared to the old method,” he said.
Meanwhile, Awang Tengah who is also Second Minister of Urban Development and Natural Resources reminded NCR landowners not to be greedy when asking for their land to be surveyed.
“Please, do not make false claims over the boundaries just because you wanted to have a bigger size of land when the perimeter surveyed carried out.
“If the proof of land is authentic, the authority will have no problem to approve but sometimes, there are some people who are greedy and want their land to be surveyed beyond the original boundary,” he pointed out.
At the same time, Awang Tengah urges the community association such as the Kedayan association in Miri to approach their local community and organise dialogue session at their respective areas in order to get their feedback and input before the perimeter survey is carried out to avoid any confusion.
Citing efforts made by the Dayak Bidayuh National Association (DBNA) in Kuching organising dialogue sessions with the Bidayuh community in Serian, Lundu and Bau to collect feedbacks and communicate on their land boundaries, he said, such initiative has helped in the perimeter survey works.
Also present during the event were Assistant Minister for Woman, Family and Childhood Development Datuk Rosey Yunus cum Bekenu assemblywoman and Lambir assemblyman Ripin Lamat. — DayakDaily
