A single policy line from the Assam Assembly floor just drew a hard boundary around some of the state's most sacred ground. Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, speaking in the Vidhan Sabha on 29 July 2026, announced that religious institutions older than 250 years would anchor a 5-kilometre radius within which only devotees of that institution and local indigenous communities could buy or sell land. Speaking in Hindi, the Chief Minister stated: 'If any religious institution is more than 250 years old, then within a 5 km radius of that institution, only those associated with that institution and local tribals will be able to buy and sell land.' He cited Maa Kamakhya Temple in Guwahati as the defining example — the kind of site where, in his framing, only the devotee community should reside and own property.

Kamakhya at the centre of the argument

Kamakhya Temple, perched on Nilachal Hill in Guwahati, is one of the most venerated Shakti Peethas in the subcontinent, drawing pilgrims from across India and beyond. Its antiquity runs well past the 250-year threshold Sarma outlined, making it the clearest, most immediate candidate for the proposed protection zone. The temple and its surrounding neighbourhood have long been subjects of demographic and land-use debates in the city.

The land-alienation problem in Assam's tribal belts

The proposal does not emerge in a vacuum. Assam has a documented history of land alienation in tribal belts — a process by which indigenous communities gradually lose ownership of ancestral land to outside buyers. Successive state governments have attempted regulatory interventions; the BJP-led administration under Sarma has repeatedly framed such measures as protecting both indigenous rights and religious heritage simultaneously. The 250-year threshold and the 5-km radius are the sharpest numerical contours yet attached to that intent. The twin beneficiaries named — devotees of the qualifying institution and local tribals — represent a deliberate political coalition: religious Hindus and indigenous Assamese communities, two constituencies the ruling party has worked to align across the Northeast.

From assembly statement to law — the gap that matters

Sarma described this as his response during an assembly session, not the passage of a bill. No confirmed legislation matching the exact 250-year and 5-km criteria has been enacted as of this report. The critical next step is whether the government introduces a formal amendment or standalone bill to give the proposal legal force — and how it defines 'associated with that institution,' a phrase that will determine who qualifies and who does not. Constitutional questions around land rights and religious classification are likely to follow any such legislation closely. The assembly statement has already set the terms of a debate that will move well beyond Guwahati's temple hill.