After years of political protests and mounting public pressure, the administration finally acted on land conversion files long frozen in red tape.
Sri Vijaya Puram, June 3 — In a long-awaited breakthrough, the Andaman and Nicobar administration has begun processing land conversion applications once again, marking the first such clearances in over a decade. Officials confirmed to The Wave Andaman that landowners across the islands may now submit files to convert agricultural and hilly land for residential or commercial purposes, reviving a process that had effectively stalled since 2013.
The Wave Andaman has reached out to the Chief Secretary and Deputy Commissioner for an official comment. Their response is awaited.
The move follows years of growing pressure from political leaders, industry groups, and residents who were locked in a bureaucratic freeze. In early 2024, Bishnu Pada Ray (MP, Lok Sabha, Andaman and Nicobar Islands) publicly accused Raj Niwas of “sitting on files for seven years” and led a dharna demanding the removal of Lieutenant Governor Admiral D K Joshi. The agitation triggered a closed-door meeting in which Ray pressed the LG to lift the blockade. Joshi, according to officials present, instructed senior administrators to “speed up solutions.”
The pressure had been building well before that. In May 2023, Congress leader and Campaign Committee chair TSG Bhasker wrote to the LG warning that “thousands of landowners are living in legal limbo.” Media outlets, too, had flagged how residents were forced to build homes without formal titles, and local businesses struggled to access loans, banks refusing to accept unconverted plots as mortgageable assets.
At the heart of the backlog was a 2017 amendment to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Land Revenue and Land Reforms Rules. The change required that any land conversion request exceeding 500 square metres be routed through a newly constituted Land Use Committee chaired by the Chief Secretary. But the committee, which lacked statutory status, barely met. The Andaman Chamber of Commerce and Industry repeatedly criticized the arrangement, noting that it had derailed approvals and left applicants in the dark.
Even the High Court weighed in, pointing out the administrative paralysis. Yet the previous SDM-led approval mechanism was never reinstated, and the Land Use Committee stopped functioning entirely after 2022.
Now, with the system revived, officials estimate that over 4,000 pending files, some dating back nearly a decade- may finally start moving. Still, challenges remain. The Land Use Committee has yet to reconvene. Staffing shortages persist in multiple tehsil offices. And despite the promise of digitisation, file tracking on the e-District portal remains unreliable, with several users reporting stalled status updates and unclear timelines.
For homeowners and first-time builders, especially in the fast-growing suburbs of Sri Vijaya Puram, the reopening of conversion routes is a critical first step. It could mean legal ownership, access to formal credit, and peace of mind.
