By Philip Kiew

reportersthebomeopost.com

LAWAS: A Malay and six Kedayan villages here have received their communal reserve gazette from the state government this year under the NCR perimeter survey initiative.

The sole Malay village is 320.75ha Kpg Punang while the six Kedayan villages are Sualai, Bukit Naga, Batong, Pangi, Sungai Kudung and Siang-Siang Laut (365.94 ha).

Second Minister of Resource Planning and Environment Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hasan presented the respective villages with aerial photographs showing the communal reserves in the respective villages.

He said that it would take time to survey all the NCR land in Sarawak comprising about 1.5 million hectares out of the state’s land mass of about 12 million ha. This was due to the scattered nature of the lands concerned.

“We gazette the land as security for the owners based on the state Land Code,” he added.

On allegations that the free perimeter survey of the land comes with a catch, he said the Land and Survey Department had been told to leave such areas alone and proceed to other land whose owners genuinely wanted their land to be surveyed.

Awang Tengah said the second phase of the surveying work would involve the department (L&S) to issue land titles to the respective owners if there were no objection to ownership.

“In Kuching, there are villagers who, together with DBNA, have already divided the (land) lots accordingly to the owners and we have requested the department to move immediately to assist them,” he said.

Also present at the presentation ceremony were Lawas MP Datuk Henry Sum Agong, Limbang divisional superintendent of Land and Survey Department Hardi Fadillah Hamzah and Lawas district officer Mohd Supaih Hamdan.

(Source:  The Borneo Post, 16 January 2013)