Committee On State Agrarian Relations and Unfinished Task of Land Reforms VOL. I DRAFT REPORT Ministry of Rural Development Government of India New Delhi Contents Page List of Committee Members a Terms of Reference b National Land Reform s Policy i - xvii Executive Summary I - XXXI Introduction Chapter – 1 : Land Ceiling and Distribution of Ceiling Surplus, Government and Bhoodan Land (Report of the Sub Group – I) Chapter – 2 : Tenancy, Sub-Tenancy and Homestead Rights (Report of the Sub Group – II) Chapter – 3 : Governance Issues and Policies Relating to Land (Report of the Sub Group – III) Chapter – 4 : Alienation of Tribal and Dalits Lands (Report of the Sub Group - IV) Chapter – 5 : Modernisation of Land Management (Report of the Sub Group – V) Chapter – 6 : Common Property Resources & Issues Related to Conversion of Agriculture Land to Non – Agricultural Use ( Report of the Sub Group – VI) Chapter – 7 : Land Management in North Eastern States (Report of the Sub Group – VII) : a : Committee on State Agrarian Relations and Unfinished Task of Land Reforms List of Members 1. Union Minister for Rural Development .. Chairman 2. Secretary, Department of Land Resources .. Member Ministry of Rural Development 3. Prof. A.K. Singh .. Member Director, Giri Institute of Development Studies Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh 4. Shri B.K.Sinha .. Member Director General NIRD, Hyderabad 5. Shri K.B. Saxena (IAS Rtd) .. Member Flat No.358, Ras Vihar Group Housing Society Plot No.99, Patparganj, Delhi 6. Prof. P.K.Jha .. Member School of Economic Sciences and Planning JNU, New Delhi 7. Shri R.C.Verma .. Member 321, Guru Jambeshwar Nagar Jaipur, Rajasthan 8. Shri Subhash Lomte .. Member National Campaign Committee for Rural Workers 125, Samrath Nagar, Aurnagabad Maharashtra 9. Dr.T.Haque .. Member Ex. Chairman, CACP) New Delhi 10. Shri Acharya Ram Murthy .. Member B-173, Police Colony, Anisabad Patna -02, Bihar 11. Shri Jagadananda .. Member State Information Commissioner Bhubaneswar-751013, Orissa 12 Ms. Neelima Khetan .. Member Seva Mandir, Old Fatehpura Udaipur 313004, Rajasthan 13. Shri Ram Dayal Munda .. Member Village Hatma (Behind Ranchi College) Morhabadi, Ranchi -834008, Jharkhand 14. Ms.Sashikala .. Member President, Dalit Bahujan Sramil Union, House No.01/4878/87/01 Bakaram Nagar, Gandhi Nagar Hyderabad 15 Shri V.K.Pipersenia .. Member Principal Secretary, Revenue Department Govt of Assam, Dispur 781 006 : b : Terms of Reference (i) To conduct in-depth review of the land ceiling programme in the country including status of distribution of land declared surplus, continued possession by the rural poor of the allotted land and expeditious disposal of land declared surplus but held up due to litigation and to suggest appropriate and effective strategies in this regard. (ii) To ensure access of the poor to common property resources, suggest ways for identification, management, development and distribution of Government/wasteland to the landless. (iii) To review the progress of distribution of Bhoodan land in the States and suggest measures for distribution of the remaining Bhoodan land to the landless. (iv) To examine the issue of tenancy and sub-tenancies and suggest measures for recording of all agricultural tenants and a framework to enable cultivators of land to lease in and lease out with suitable assurances for fair rent, security of tenure and right to resumption. (v) To examine the issues relating to alienation of tribal lands including traditional rights of the forest-dependant tribals and to suggest realistic measures including changes required in the relevant laws for restoration of such lands to them. (vi) To examine the issue of setting up of fast track courts/mechanism for speedy disposal of land related litigation cases. (vii) To look into the land use aspects, particularly the agricultural land, and recommend measures to prevent/minimize conversion of agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes consistent with development needs of the country. (viii) To examine the issues related to homestead rights and recommend measures for providing land for housing to the families without homestead land. (ix) To suggest measures for modernization of land management with special reference to updating of land records, proper recording of land rights and speedy resolution of conflicts and disputes relating to land. (x) Suggest institutional mechanisms for effective implementation of land reform programmes. (xi) To examine measures to provide women greater access to land and other productive assets. (xii) Any other issue of relevance. (xiii) Any other Term of Reference that may be decided by the Committee in its first meeting. An Agenda to Reform Agrarian relations for Equity and Efficiency in Contemporary India i NATIONAL LAND REFORMS POLICY I. THE CONTEXT 1.1 It is common knowledge that access to land is of critical significance in large parts of India and the entire economic, social and political networks revolve around it. Agriculture and primary sector activities based on land and other natural resources are the prime source of livelihood for the vast majority of the economically vulnerable rural population, including the poor in the country. Further, land provides not only economic sustenance but often plays a key role in enhancing the prospects of substantive citizenship in much of rural India. Thus the issue of land rights and access to natural resources is therefore one which must be envisioned not in narrow economic terms (e.g., a unit of production) but as basis for larger well-being. 1.2 The capacity of land to provide food, livelihood sustenance and surpluses for capital investment to our population remains despite the growing pressures. The National Centre for Agriculture Economics and Policy Research [NCAP] forecasts that a growth rate of 2.21 percent is required to meet the estimated demand for the years 2003-12 and 1.85 percent for the 20011-21. As against this the XIth Plan document targets a growth of 4 percent. This growth, however, cannot be achieved with a narrow institutional base and thorough land reforms are condition precedent to the realization of these production goals. Far from the Malthusian limits being exhausted we are yet to utilise our potentials even in major parts. 1.3 Even if we choose to confine the perspective on land to the limited economistic understanding it is well-known that land reforms play an extremely important role in accelerating growth and in poverty reduction. The historical experience bears ample testimony to it. In India, lack of access to land has condemned millions into endemic and chronic poverty, seriously limiting possibilities of upward mobility for future generations belonging to such poor households. Furthermore, it may not be off the mark to suggest that the recent acceleration in the country’s growth rates has largely eluded the economic and social well-being and empowerment of its most vulnerable citizens. 1.4 In what continues to be primarily an agriculture based economy, rural poverty and well-being remain closely tied to questions of land ownership and control. The country will never be able to achieve a structural end to rural poverty without land reforms, including redistributive measures and security of tenure and ownership, prevention of usurious alienation from vulnerable segments of people and ownership of house sites. 1.5 The imperative for land reforms derives firstly from the Constitutional mandate for equality before law and the primary duty of the state to ensure redistributive justice. It is reiterated nearly sixty years after Independence in the Common Minimum Programme of the UPA government, declared on 24 May 2004, that ‘landless families will be endowed with land through implementation of land ceiling and land redistribution legislation. No reversal of ceiling will be permitted’. 1.6 It may also be emphasized that the changes in overall macroeconomic policy regime since the early 1990s may have significantly contributed to acceleration in loss of land and other critical natural resources from the vulnerable segments of the country’s population. This may be at the root of the significant spurt in increasing rural unrest and ‘extremist’ violence in 220 districts of the country, as ii has been recognized by the Expert Group of the Planning Commission 1. In other words, not only the progress in land reforms may have been halted in the recent years, but there is real danger of the reversal of the land reform agenda. 1.7 After independence, as is well-known, the State recognized the vital link between land and livelihood of the masses in rural areas and launched land reform measures, but such measures in most parts of the country have fallen dramatically short of their objectives, including that of required minimum in terms of homestead land for every family. Grossly inadequate achievements are clearly evident from the distorted land holding pattern. According to the NSSO Report on landholding (2003), 95.65 per cent of the farmers are within the small and the marginal categories owning approximately 62 per cent of the operated land areas while the medium and the large farmers who constitute 3.5 per cent own 37.72 per cent of the total area. A clear increase is perceptible in the number of landless labour in rural areas accompanied by a decline in the wage rate in the agricultural sector. There is also an accompanying decline in the profitability of agriculture. An average farmer spends about Rs.503 per month as his household expenditure (NSSO 59 th Round). This has brought about a concentration of poverty amongst the rural landless labour, marginal and small farmers and the minorities. 1.8 The agricultural scenario is characterised by declining agricultural productivity due to decline in availability of the key inputs like fertilizers and lack of basic infrastructure and institutional support, which has triggered off the great distress in the rural areas. This has given rise to vast turbulence in the rural areas.