KUCHING: The state government through the Ministry of Urban Development and Natural Resources presented native communal land titles to 40 villages in Serian and Tebedu districts and also 202 individual land titles for 160 villagers in Kampung Petag, Siburan yesterday.
Deputy Chief Minister and Second Minister of Urban Development and Resources Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hasan said rights to these land belong exclusively to the villagers who are made up of mostly the Bidayuhs and Ibans.
These plots of land were previously native customary rights (NCR) land, he said at the presentation of land titles at Dewan Ranchan in Serian, near here yeterday.
Assistant Minister of Urban Development and Resources Datu Len Talif Salleh, Assistant Minister of Native Land and Regional Development Datuk Roland Sagah, Deputy State Secretary Datu Ik Pahon Joyik who is also Dayak Bidayuh National Association (DBNA) president, Bukit Semuja assemblyman John Ilus, Kedup assemblyman Martin Ben, State Land and Survey director Abdullah Julaihi and Serian Land and Survey Superintendant Jacqueline George Paou were also present at the function.
“With these titles, no one can question the righful ownership of what used to be their NCR land.
“I hope the recipients will use their land wisely and to the optimum for their own betterment and that of their families.
“The individual land titles granted under Section 18 of the Sarawak Land Code is very special in that they are without premium or any other land fee, and are in perpetuity,” said Awang Tengah.
However, he said that NCR land belonging to those who went to the court would not be surveyed until they withdrew their court action pursuant to re-applying for land survey on the affected land.
He said through the more efficient new perimeter survey initiative implemented in 2010, a total of 934,288 hectares or 2.3 million acres of NCR land had been surveyed.
From that figure, 753,456 hectares (or 1.8 million acres) of the land had been gazetted as native communal reserve.
“This mean that the new method of surveying could cover 103,809 hectares of land a year.
“Based on this achievement we have increased our output almost 20 times compared to that using the old method,” he said, adding that before any surveying was done, the Land and Survey Department had to hold dialogue sessions with the NCR land owners or claimants to get their feedbacks, support and agreement.
Awang Tengah said the Sarawak government had allocated RM40 million for the purpose of surveying NCR land for this year (2020) alone.
This allocation is on top of the RM7.5 million allocated by the federal government under Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin for 2020, he added.
He said this year, the Land and Survey Department would be focussing of creating more individual land titles under Section 18 from several communal land under Section 6.
So far 34,091 individual lots totalling 42,265 hectares (104,436 acres) have been issued under Section 18 of the SLC, he said.
About 260,000 hectares or 642,460 acres of NCR land have been surveyed in 50 years since the 1960s, he added
