Land Reforms

Policies related to land management and reforms in India progressed through four broad phases. The first phase (1950-72) sought the abolition of the intermediaries, tenancy reform, and the redistribution of land. The second phase shifted attention to bringing uncultivated land under cultivation. The third phase (1985-95) increased attention towards water and soil conservation, while the fourth and current phase of policy (1995 onwards) centres on the necessity to continue with land legislation and efforts to improve land revenue administration and clarity in land records.

In this context, following steps have so far been taken by the government:

• Enactment of Abolition of Zamindari Act.
• Tenancy regulation to improve contractual terms including security of tenure.
• Introduction of Land Ceiling, where a cap on maximum land ownership was introduced. The land in excess of limit was distributed amongst the landless.
• Cooperative farms to provide for a larger productive land for the community to work on.
• Appropriate compensation for the acquired land through the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Second Amendment) Act, 2013.
• The Scheduled tribes and other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 which provides land rights to tribals and other traditional forest dwelling communities.
• Under the Digital India Land Records Modernization Programme, the government has achieved over 90 per cent digitisation of land records.

The imperative for land reforms derives from the Constitutional mandate to ensure redistributive justice. However, land reforms still remains an unfinished agenda and marred with inadequate achievements. There remain issues like:

• Land ceiling legislations in India have underachieved. According to an NSSO Report, 95.65 per cent of the farmers are small and marginal owning approximately 62 per cent of the operated land areas while medium and large farmers who constitute 3.5 per cent own 37.72 per cent of the total area.
• The efforts to acquire ceiling surplus land or benami holdings of land have failed due to underlying interest structure developed amongst large landowners, elites and the bureaucracy.
• Customary rights over the forests and land resources are yet to be fully recognized following tardy implementation of Forest Rights Act.
• Land titles remain unclear thereby leading to several legal disputes related to land ownership. affecting the agriculture and real estate sectors. Disputed or unclear land titles inhibit supply of capital and credit for agriculture.
• There is a lack of clarity around the clear definition of Common Property Resources which is the root cause of the improper public interventions.
• There exists gross discrimination in recognizing womens’ rights leading to gender inequalities in land relations.
• Restrictions on lease market drive tenancy underground while some land owners keep their land fallow.

In this context, initiatives like revisiting land ceiling limits; recognition of customary rights over forests; women’s rights; tenancy and sub tenancy reforms; empowering local bodies in land management systems etc. become important.