D.T. Lepcha, a Rajya Sabha member from Sikkim, has demanded that the villagers living near the India-China border in north Sikkim be granted land rights to counter the neighbouring country's policy of creating new settlements along the frontier to solidify Chinese presence.

“I have made a special mention (in Rajya Sabha) on the issue of granting land rights to villagers residing along the Indo-Tibet border in north Sikkim,” said Lepcha who has described the land on the other side of Sikkim as Tibet and not China during his speech in Parliament.

The government usually provides a written answer to queries raised in a special mention within a month.

The MP said creating permanent settlements for the residents along the Sikkim border would strengthen the country’s border.

Sikkim shares a 220km boundary with China. A two-month border stand-off between India and China took place at Doklam in 2017. Doklam lies in the trijunction of China, Bhutan and Sikkim.

Lepcha has said 250-300 families are living in the border areas of north Sikkim. “They do not have land rights as they are staying in forest and reserved forests,” said Lepcha.

According to the legislator, those people were deployed in the area by the army and other allied government departments to construct the Nathu-la Road in 1952.

Nathu-la situated at an altitude of about 14,000 feet has military posts of both the countries on each other’s side. Trade is also conducted through this point.

“The army and GREF ((General Reserve Engineering Force) which is a unit of the army) would take these people from one place to another to construct roads during that period. They have documents to prove that they were hired during the road construction,” said Lepcha.

The BJP MP said setting up settlements along the border should be a priority.

“We have been hearing of settlements on the other side of the border. We, too, should ensure that people stay in the border villages and they do not move out of the region (in search of better livelihood),” said Lepcha.

A recent article by The New York Times, which was also published by The Telegraph on August 11, said China had put up at least one village near every accessible Himalayan pass that borders India, as well as on most of the passes bordering Bhutan and Nepal in the last eight years.

The report said China had made no secret that the main purpose of setting up new villages or moving people from the mainland to those villages by providing incentives “is to defend the country’s territory along a disputed border”.

“It is important to provide incentives as life is difficult in those high-altitude areas,” said Lepcha.

To counter China’s settlements, the Centre had in 2023 launched the Vibrant Villages Programme (VVP) with a financial outlay of ₹4,800 crore from 2022-23 to 2025-26. Select villages in 46 blocks abutting the northern border in Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Uttarakhand and the Union territory of Ladakh are brought under this programme.