Report on Public Disclosure Authorized LAND GOVERNANCE ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORK, JHARKHAND Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Prepared by Jharkhand State Team Public Disclosure Authorized Kanke –Pithoria Road, Nagri Village, PO- BUKURU, Sub Division –Kanke, District- Ranchi , Pin- 834006 CONTENT Title Page No. Acknowledgement 3-4 List of Tables 5 Executive Summary and Policy matrix 6-14 Chapter 1: State Context 15-26 Chapter 2: Panel 1: Land Rights Recognition 27-62 Chapter 3: Panel 2: Rights to Forest and Common Lands & Rural 63-87 Land Use Regulations Chapter 4: Panel 3: Urban Land Use, Planning, and Development 88-110 Chapter 5 : Panel 4: Public Land Management 111-134 Panel 5: Chapter 6: Panel 5: Transfer of Public Land to Private Use Follows a 135 -158 Clear, Transparent, and Competitive Process Chapter 7: Panel 6: Public Provision of Land Information: Registry 159-208 and Cadastre Chapter 8: Panel 7: Land Valuation and Taxation 209-228 Chapter 9: Panel 8: Dispute Resolution 229-243 Chapter 10: Panel 9: Review of Institutional Arrangements and 244-272 Policies Chapter 11: Strength, Best Practices and Weaknesses 273-277 Chapter 12: Key Policy Messages for the State of Jharkhand and 278-291 Conclusion Final Dimension Score 292-295 References 296-298 Abbreviations 299-300 Jharkhand State Team 301 Name of Panellists 302 Participants at State Level Validation Workshop 303-304 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT In 2012, the State Governments of Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh by way of the Department of Land Resources, Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India, have requested the World Bank to support the undertaking of an independent land governance assessment using the LGAF approach. In each of the participating states, a well reputed local institution was selected to undertake the State-level Coordination of the LGAF. National University of Study and Research in Law, Ranchi was identified to conduct LGAF study for Jharkhand. This institution selected a State coordinator and a team of State experts to undertake the assessment in consultation with a nodal officer assigned by the State Government. (See Team Composition in Annexure). The six State institutions and LGAF teams are supported by the Technical Advisory Group (TAG); a highly qualified and capable team of nationally recognized experts each covering one of the LGAF thematic areas. The TAG provides backstopping and quality assurance for the entire LGAF exercise, from manual adaptation to the Indian context, State level implementation to national level consolidation of the State reports. The LGAF process and TAG are coordinated by the TAG secretariat, hosted by CSD, the Center for Sustainable Development in Delhi. CSD coordinated also the work with DoLR and The World bank that has provided financial support and methodological guidance on the use of the LGAF instrument which is applied in over 30 countries globally. We thank World Bank for identifying NUSRL, Ranchi to conduct this study for Jharkhand. We are also thankful to Hon’ble High Court of Jharkhand, Department of Land Revenue and Land Reforms, Department of Forestry, Department of Registration, Department of Urban Development, and other offices of Government of Jharkhand for their active cooperation in conducting this study. We also thank Hon’ble Vice Chancellor, Professor B. C. Nirmal for constant inspiration and encouragement throughout the study. We are thankful to Dr. C. Ashokvardhan, IAS (Rtd.), Member, State Finance Commission, Government of Bihar for his valuable advice and guidance in conducting this study. We also thank all our expert investigators, panellists and distinguished participants in state validation workshop for taking time out from their busy schedule to participate and contribute in the LGAF study. 3 LIST OF TABLES Table Title Page No. No. 2.1 Survey Settlement work for preparing records of right in different 37 districts in Jharkhand 5.1 Present Position of Record of Rights Survey 120 7.1 Stamp Duty Rate Of Schedule- 1a 163 7.2 Revenue Collection for Financial Year 2010 -11 To 2012 -13 177 7.3 Latest Position of Survey in Jharkhand 181 8.1 Land Revenue collection in Jharkhand from 2008-09 to 2012-13 212 8.2 Rent and Cess collection in Jharkhand upto October, 2013. 216 8.3 Revenue Collection for Financial Year 2000 -01 To 2013-14 by the 217 Department of Registration, Jharkhand 8.4 Arrear and Collection from Khas Mahal, November, 2013 218 8.5 Renewal of Lease of Khas Mahal, November, 2013 220 9.1 Pending cases in the 2nd quarter of the year 2013, ending as on 30th 240 June, 2013 9.2 District and Subordinate Courts of Jharkhand 240 9.3 Nature wise categorization of pending cases in the civil court 241 4 Executive Summary This report is the result of a comprehensive study conducted in the state of Jharkhand to assess the performance of the Government of Jharkhand in the field of land governance using the diagnostic tool “Land Governance Assessment Framework” (LGAF), prepared by World Bank The Land Governance Assessment Framework (LGAF) is a diagnostic tool that has been developed for the evaluation of the legal framework, policies and practices relating to land policy, administration, use and management. LGAF is the result of a comprehensive study that covers all kind of issues and concerns related to the governance of land and land use. These issues and concerns are divided in nine broad thematic areas, The nine thematic areas are (i) Land Rights Recognition (ii) Rights to Forest and Common Lands & Rural Land Use Regulations (iii) Urban Land Use Planning and Development (iv) Public Land Management (v) Transfer of Public Land to Private Use (vi) Public Provision of Land Information: Registry and Cadastre (vii) Land Valuation and Taxation (viii) Dispute Resolution and (ix) Review of Institutional Arrangements and Policies. The LGAF framework consists of 27 land governance indicators (LGI) that covers these panel topics. Each indicator is further broken down into a number of “dimensions” with pre-coded statements (on a scale of A to D). In total there are 118 dimensions in the LGAF. An executive summary of the finding of all nine themes as are as follows. Panel 1: Land Rights Recognition Two separate tenancy laws, Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act (CNT Act) 1908 and Santhal Pargana Manuals and Santal Pargana Tenancy (Supplementary Provisions) Act, 1949 (SPT Act), determine incidence of tenancy, the respective rights and obligations of the tenants and the state, in two separate administrative divisions of Jharkhand, Chota Nagpur and Santal Pargana respectively. Both are time- tested laws. The major thrust of both these tenancy Acts was to protect the interest of weaker and vulnerable section (Schedule Tribes, Schedule Caste, and Backward Caste) of the society. It makes stringent provisions to regulate the transfer of land from these weaker sections of the society to others. 5 Both these Acts respects individual as well as common rights over land in both urban and rural areas. These Acts also specifically recognizes certain customary rights and practice regarding land use and holding. Both these Acts respects, e.g. CNT Act specifically protect rights of Mundari Khuntkattidari (a special kind of tenancy that recognises the traditional ownership of original clearer of the forest) over forests and exclude such forests from the jurisdiction of Indian Forest Act 1928. Massive cadastral and revisional surveys were conducted in pre-independence era by British government that forms the basic records of rights. One of the major drawbacks in the area of land governance in Jharkhand is that the government has not been able to complete fresh revisional surveys of land, therefore, the available records of rights for most of the parts of Jharkhand belongs to pre-independence era. However fresh revisional survey has begun in several areas, and program for computerisation of all land records is also undergoing, however the speed of these works are not very satisfactory. Though stringent provisions have been made to prohibits the transfer of land belonging to ST, SC and BC communities to others communities, still several cases have come out where fraudulent transfer has indeed taken place and many a time such transfer has taken place by using loopholes in the existing Act. Recommendation to tap these loopholes has been made in this detailed report. Other major drawbacks in recognition of individual rights over land in Jharkhand pertains to the fact that among schedule tribe communities women have very limited rights over landed property. These deprivations exist because of customary practices of these tribes that deny such rights on landed property to women. Both in the state level validation workshop and in panel discussion, these issues were recognised and it was recommended that a broader consensus is required to remove these anomalies. Panel 2: Rights to Forest and Common Lands & Rural Land Use Regulations Right to Forest The state of Jharkhand has very unique relationship with forest, the name Jharkhand itself mean “area of land covered with forests”. The total forest and tree cover put together, it 6 constitutes about 32.48% of the geographical area of the state against the national average of 23.81%. Jharkhand inherited the forest management practices and forest legislations from the parent state of Bihar, though quite a few legislations have been enacted after the formation of Jharkhand either by the Government of India or the state itself. After independence, the Govt. of the day, through land reform measures, wrested the ownership and control over these forests from the ex-landlords and princes. Gradually the rights of the subjects were regulated and ultimately restricted to annual right holder coupes over a limited period of time extending from a week to a month, in the said interest of the scientific management of these forests through induction and implementation of successive working plans of the forest divisions.