LAND TENURE IN INDIA
Implications for Natural Resource Management
D Rajasekhar
Professor and Head, Decentralisation and Development Unit, ISEC,
Bangalore
Presentation at Natural Resource Management and Institutions: The Links
between Property Rights, Collective Action and Natural Resource
Management, Februray 7-11, 2005, ICRISAT, Patancheru, India
INTRODUCTION
• Land tenure implies rights in relation to land.
• Two types of rights - ownership and cultivation.
• Include different types of claims that people have to land
and specify what one can and cannot do, and what
benefits one is entitled to.
• Determine long-term incentives to invest in, sustain and
improve resources.
• This, in turn, determines the collective or individual
action around management of land.
• Land tenure is shaped by the government policies in
relation to land reforms and their impact. 2
Land reforms in India
• Advocated to bring in equitable agrarian structure and improve
land productivity, thereby to increase food production.
• Three components
• Abolition of intermediaries b/w government and cultivator
• Tenancy reforms
– Principle of land to the tiller & create the class of owner-proprietors
– If not possible, tenancy was to be controlled and rendered fair
– Eradication of share-cropping, fair rents and secured tenure.
• Fixation of ceiling on the size of landholdings and redistribution
of surplus land.
3
Tenancy reforms
• The tenancy area declined from 23% in the early 1950s
to 8% in the 1990s.
• Some landless tenants obtained ownership rights; but,
inter-regional variations exist
• Greater impact on absentee landlords with little influence
in village power structure.
• Resulted in evictions, resumption of land for personal
cultivation, concealed tenancy, reverse tenancy, reduced
lease period (where it was formal).
• Between 15-25% tenancies in the country are illegal;
80% of leased land is held by small and marginal
farmers. 4
Tenancy reforms (contd)
• Landlords taking pro-active role (such as cost sharing,
specification of crops, etc.) due to the fear of tenant
occupancy.
• The share of landlord in input costs increased due to
technological changes.
• Tenant cultivators production efficiency may have gone up
as falling wage employment opportunities contributed to
enhanced interest.
• Gujarat experience shows that banning tenancy will not
lead to desired results.
• National Commission on Agriculture stated that given
declining land-man ratio tenancy cannot be banned.
5
Ceiling laws
• Skewed distribution of land ownership in 1950s; 8% of
large farmers owned 53% of land and 28% of marginal
farmers owned 6% of area.
• Inverse size-productivity relationship suggested
economic gains to small peasants.
• First phase (1960-72) of ceiling laws were not radical. A
delayed and diluted legislation failed to have desired
impact. In fact, provided scope for adjustments and for
emergence of `benami holdings’ or paper partitionings.
• Micro studies revealed land transfers in favour of the
wealthy (due to tenancy reforms) and a rise in the
concentration of land ownership.
6
Ceiling laws (contd)
• More radical reforms in 1972; yet, the performance was
poor.
– Land declared surplus was less than the estimated surplus land
– Only 1.8 million ha (out of 3 million ha) of land was acquired.
– 50% of land to be distributed was involved in litigation
– Land distributed was only 1.5% of NSA.
• Ceiling laws resulted in a change in land acquisitive ethos
of rich peasants.
• Rich peasants started to gradually withdraw from the land
market and started to seek greener pastures in non-
agricultural activities.
• Noticeable decline in the concentration of land ownership
7
Consolidation of landholdings
• Attempt was made to consolidate holdings to reduce inefficiency in operation and
cultivation.
• But, received least attention; no legislation, only persuasion.
• Between 1974 and 2004, %age of area consolidated to planned area ranged
between 22% and 40%.
• Ceiling laws resulted in a rapid rise in the %age of marginal holdings as the
objective of these laws was equity rather than farm efficiency.
• Higher rates of partitioning resulted in fragmented landholdings as the ownership
of holdings with different quality is perceived to be risk preventing mechanism.
• Yet, a rapid growth of marginal holdings (from 28% in 1950s to 61% in 1990s)
was a concern to the policy makers as the current holding structure neither meets
efficiency nor equity.
8
Land surveys
• The last survey of land was undertaken during
the colonial period (1920).
• The changes in the ownership (legal or illegal)
that have taken place since then are enormous,
and call for fresh survey.
• Yet, no survey is undertaken due to the complex
and sheer size of the task.
• Implies that land records are in a bad shape, and
any dispute would call for official intervention.
• GIS technology however makes this feasible. 9
Computerisation of land records
• Recording (periodic updating) of land rights is recongnised as an
essential pre-requisite.
• Computerisation of land records is undertaken in a phased manner,
and the task is complete in 177 districts.
• Contributed to reduction in time for farmers in obtaining the required
legal document.
• Delays in funds transfer and development of appropriate software
and inadequate training resulted in slow progress.
• Involved entering the land records as they are without making any
attempt to make them accurate.
• In the absence of any land survey in recent years, the records tended
to be inaccurate in several cases.
10
The landed farmer in India typically is...
• A tenant
– Not having a formal contract
– Cannot bargain with the landlord
– Does not have incentive to participate in a programme such as watershed and
share her immense knowledge on practices of soil conservation
– who has to combine wage labour with occassional migration
– And so on.
• A marginal farmer
– Owning tiny and unviable landholding
– Not sure of exact size of the landholding
– Cultivating infertile land distributed by the government
– Small and scattered landholding coming in the way of participation in land
development programmes
11
The landed farmer in India typically is...
• An encroacher
– not sure of whether s/he will cultivate the land
tomorrow
– not having incentives to invest and sustain
landed resources
– But, paying sums to people who matter to keep
cultivation rights
• What is needed to facilitate collective action
among small and marginal farmers?
• A case study
12
Fight to evict an encroacher of tank land
- Bheemanatta
• This village is located in Kolar district in Karnataka and has 64
households
• Heterogeneous village with 44% households belonging to
SC/ST, 45% to OBC and 11% to upper castes.
• SC and OBC households were organized by local NGO, and the
main intervention was micro-finance
• Micro-finance only marginally stabilised household incomes
(through reduced dependence on informal agencies and
borrowing for short-term production)
• Micro-finance, however, did not result in significant poverty
reduction.
13
Bheemanatta (contd)
• The poor expressed the need to rehabilitate the tank on which
many of them depended for their livelihood.
• The command area of the tank included lands of many
households
• But, the tank was dysfunctional, and hence, needed rejuvenation.
• The NGO, with donor funds, started community based
rehabilitation scheme since 1994.
• An important problem was encroachment of tank land by an
upper caste and wealthy person, occupying political position in
gram panchayat
• Invested heavily on borewell and coconut plantation; hence,
reluctant to vacate the land despite the pressure of people’s
organisations.
14
Case study (contd)
• People’s organisations met the encroacher for negotiated
settlement.
• The encroacher refused; challenged them to go to officials.
• People’s organisations met officials
• Obtaining original land documents was difficult.
• Getting the surveyor to the site was difficult both because of
shortage of staff and political influence of the encroacher.
• After continuous follow-up, surveyor demarcated the land
• Getting the encroacher evicted required the use of police force.
• The encroacher managed to implicate key representatives of
people’s organisations in false cases
15
A few lessons
• Small and marginal farmers require solid backing of civil society
organisations
• The people could get the encroacher evicted due to their long
association with each other in micro-finance groups and trust and
confidence on each other.
• The poor state of land records make it difficult for the people to
believe that they can ever achieve success and leads to
considerable hardship.
• Collective action was costly to these farmers as this involved in
many visits to officials, indifferent to their problem
• Their interest to act collectively to rehabilitate the public good was
sustained because of clarity on future benefits stream and wage
employment that was possible.
16
