Over 22 million rai covered by Sor Por Kor 4-01 documents, widely known as land rights for the poor, will be upgraded to land title deeds for agriculture within five years, according to Agriculture Minister Thamanat Prompow.
He said the policy would provide the maximum benefits for eligible people, and insisted that there would be no loopholes for nominees to take advantage of.
Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin will kick off the programme by presenting land rights documents to 1,000 holders in Bang Sai district of Ayutthaya on Jan 15.
The ministry hopes to convert the status of 22 million rai of land under its responsibility within five years. The process could go faster if it had a bigger budget, Capt Thamanat said.
Documents for 2 million rai are now ready to be upgraded based on specific conditions, including that the land must have been in the holder’s possession for five years or more.
He said the ministry has come up with extra measures to prevent the illegal possession of land, and that wrongdoers will face criminal charges.
“We are focussing on the screening procedure to prevent the transfer of land to non-eligible people,” he said.
The minister has been a strong advocate of proper title for agricultural land, saying current regulations under the land reform law were out of date and not in line with societal changes.
If people no longer want to farm, he said, they should still have the option to benefit from the land, including the right to sell it.
The ministry has established three regulations to support the policy, which would grant people the right to sell the land to other farmers or others conducting farming-related businesses.
Capt Thamanat said that more than 200,000 people have registered for the land title upgrade and that the Agricultural Land Reform Office branches in each province are ready to support them.
Some 22 million rai of Sor Por Kor land is now occupied by 1.6 million families.
Sor Por Kor 4-01 papers were introduced in 1975 to give poor landless farmers plots, mostly on degraded forest land, for small-scale farming. The land cannot be sold and can only be transferred to the children or heirs of the holders.
But over the years, many plots have changed hands illegally with the land used for commercial purposes including resorts. In 1995, then-agriculture minister Suthep Thaugsuban was accused of overseeing the granting of Sor Por Kor land to wealthy and connected people in Phuket. The resulting scandal brought down the Democrat Party government of Chuan Leekpai.
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