LAND REFORMS IN INDIA

LAND REFORMS IN INDIA

WHAT IS LAND FORM –

v  Land reforms involve the changing of laws, regulations or customs regarding land ownership.

v  Land reforms refer to transfer of ownership from more powerful to less powerful.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND –

Land reforms after independence -

1.      Institutional reforms

·         Abolition of intermediaries

·         Tenancy reforms- security of tenure, decrease in rent, conferment of ownership rights.

·         Ceiling  on size of landholdings

·         Cooperativization and community development programmes.

2.      Technological reform

v  Beginning around mid or late sixties ushering in green revolution .

DIFFERENT DIMENSIONS OF LAND REFORMS-

Ø  Anti poverty strategy – majority of our population

v  depends on agriculture so improvement in agriculture through

v   the vortex of land reforms is prerequisite.

Ø  Empowerment of women – as it has been

v  increased feminization of agriculture ,

v  an estimated 20 % of rural household are de facto female headed ,

v  women are often managing land and livestock .

v  Tenurial security can empower women to assert themselves better with agencies that provide input and extension services.

v  women with asset such as land have greater bargaining power which can lead to more gender equal allocations of benefits even from male incomes.

v  Women without independent resources are vulnerable to poverty though they are better informed about agricultural knowledge. Moreover it would add to socio-cultural fabric.

Ø  Land alienation-

v  the menace of naxalism has its root in land alienation .

v   The Ministry of Home Affairs’ assessment, in 2006, was that

v  120-150 districts in 12 states were “Naxal-infested”. Obviously, normal writs of the State did not operate in these areas.

v  Thus, a huge chunk of mainland India was being “governed” by extra-legal and, in some places, illegal authorities.

v   The assessment also showed that militants, whoever they were, had established a rapport with the local population due to which they were able to move about freely evading and avoiding the pincers of the law-enforcing authorities.

v  They were proving to the hilt Mao Tse-tung’s doctrine of ‘Fish in Water’, where the fish were the militants and the water the mass of disgruntled, disaffected peasantry and landless agricultural workers.

v  If the disaffection of the latter could be substantially reduced, the water would evaporate and the militants disappear.

Ø  Food security-

v  to ensure food security for such a vast population as in india land reforms becomes vital.

v  And  if we fail to ensure food security we fail to ensure nutritional security too.

Ø  Equality to india-

v  equality is our constitutional right and by land reforms this is granted to every citizen of our country.

INITIATIVES TAKEN SO FAR-

Ø  Land ceiling – ceiling limits has been prescribed by the states above which a family cannot own a land.

Ø  Bhoodan land- the land owners who had large quantities of land were persuaded to surrender some part voluntarily .

Ø  Tenancy reforms- leasing out land to others needy person on written or oral agreement hence some states enacted laws to protect tenants.

Ø  Common property resource-

v  states have conferred rights to  the communities

v  over resources such as

v   pasture land, fuel wood, minor forest produce.

Ø  Waste land- states distributes the waste land available with them to the landless persons.

Ø  Tribal land alienation- enactment of laws for the protection of scheduled tribes.

CHALLENGES

v  Land and its management

v  fall in exclusive domain of states .

v  each state has different set up for land and land record management

v  so this heterogenecity is an issue.

v  Shifting Economic Imperatives –

v  Increasing people’s access to land and

v  creating a more equitable redistribution of land assets are important for India, particularly in view of its

v  high and ever-increasing person-to-land ratio.

v   Increased emphasis on industrialization should not result in an abandonment of the rural sector.

v  Maintaining Ecological Balance

v  ecological balance between the proportion of land designated for forestry, agriculture, and nonagricultural purposes.

v  There is a need to explore the linkages among rural poverty, landlessness, and skewed land tenure systems with particular attention to the problems of deforestation.

v   The reduction of forests inevitably disturbs the ecological balance.

v  Cyclical patterns of droughts followed by floods have been clearly linked to this.

v  At the same time, there is no guarantee that the already existing skewed distribution of land outside the forests will not be replicated.

v  Preserving Human Diversity

v   The concept of land as a commodity comes into conflict

v  with traditional concepts of common property and with societies,

v   such as those of many tribal peoples throughout India,

v  who generally do not have a documented system of land rights.

v  Complexities of Common Property Regimes

v  Resources, both natural and manmade, controlled and managed as common property present another challenge in the context of land-related issues.

v  Besides private property or property owned and controlled by the state,

v  common property such as forests, grazing lands, water, and fisheries can also be held

v  and managed through a community resource management system.

v  At present the issues related to land are dealt by the various govt. department with little scope of interdepartmental coordination.

v  Land management largely bureaucratically controlled no resurveys to create upto date land records .

v  To add to the misery of rural population majority of the revenue courts continue to operate in English language

v  unknown to rural hinterlands.

MEASURES TO STRENTHGEN LAND REFORMS-

v  A massive operation should be undertaken to restore alienated tribal lands to their rightful tribal owners.

v  Appropriate amendments of the Land Acquisition Act of 1894 and Coal Bearing Areas (Acquisition Development) Act of 1957 in tune with PESA.

v   Issue of ‘user pattas’in the names of women and men for use of CPR including

v  tree pattas for forest dwellers and

v  water pattas for fisherfolk over inland or coastal CPR waterbodies.

v   Setting up of a dispute settlement mechanism at the gram panchayat level

v   with gram panchayat members and representatives of beneficiary groups, with a representative of the bureaucracy as a member convenor, to keep records and explain the legal position.

v  The NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL so as to make it fully federal structure.

v  The settlement of rent should be left to the village community to decide at the panchayat level and to be appropriated for their own purpose.

v  The survey operations should be subjected to social audit

v  The state have to device a regular method where by the updation of records of rights may take place without there being requirement of survey operation in the present mode.

NAME- SWATI

REFERENCES- 1) YOJANA

2)BIPIN CHANDRA-INDIA AFTER INDEPENDENCE