Bibek Debroy: Hot and cold in the same breath

Sensible suggestions made by the Working Group on Land Relations in various areas have been undermined by those in others.

Various working groups have been set up to provide inputs for the 11 th Five Year Plan. Among the first few reports submitted, is one on land relations. We don't always need a Hernando de Soto to tell us that land markets should be freed up and developed. One way of interpreting the reform debate in India, is to argue that product markets were liberalised in the first flush of liberalisation and the discourse is about factor markets now. It is also true that Constitutionally (under the Seventh Schedule) product markets are usually "" though not always "" on the Union List, whereas factor markets are on the Concurrent or even the State List. The Report of the Working Group on Land Relations, submitted on 31st July, has four substantive chapters "" (a) modernisation of land management, (b) implementation of appropriate ceiling and tenancy laws, (c) alienation of tribal land and (d) development of land markets, contract farming and implementation of homestead rights. One of the features of any report "" unless the chairperson assumes the burden of writing all of it "" is that different chapters are authored by different people, especially if different sub-groups have been constituted to work on various issues, as has happened in the present case. Consequently, there is liable to be a lack of logical coherence. That too, has happened in the present case.

Forget the issues for the moment and focus on the recommendations. First, the modernisation of land management theme. Amend/introduce laws to facilitate registration of deeds, through a new authority called Land Officer, to replace Registrar and Revenue Tehsildar. Computerise pending mutations. Update and digitise all sub-divisional spatial data, put it up on the Internet and use digital data as true copy of registration-cum-mutation. Revise the registration system so that land officers take primary responsibility for checking both procedure and substance, including sketches that can be incorporated into cadastral maps. There is a suggestion of creating a new bureaucracy, but that's not very serious. Hence, unexceptionable recommendations, although implementation is a function of what one decides under the other three heads. Otherwise, we have garbage in and garbage out. Second, we have the issue of ceiling and tenancy laws and the two issues need to be separated, as has been done in the report. For instance, people oppose tenancy law reform because they think one is talking about changes in ownership laws.

Here is what we have on ceiling laws: Re-fix ceiling thresholds with five to 10 acres for irrigated land and 10 to 15 acres for non-irrigated land. Reclassify newly-irrigated areas and bring land covered by private irrigation and perennial sources under ceiling legislation. Tighten the Benami Transactions Act. Introduce a card indexing system to prevent benami transactions. Set up a squad of revenue functionaries and gram sabha members to identify benami and fictitious transfers. Remove ceiling exemptions granted to religious, educational, charitable and industrial units. Impose criminal sanctions on failure to furnish declarations of surplus land. Set up Land Tribunals or Fast Track Courts and insert a penal clause for action against officers. Empower authorities to expedite allotment of surplus land and bar civil courts from intervening in instances of surplus agricultural land. Cancel illegal or improper allotments of surplus land. Have lower thresholds for absentee landlords and non-resident land-owners.

On tenancy laws, allow leasing out and leasing in of agricultural land, especially for tilling within threshold limits. Without conferring titles, share-cropping should be recognised and share croppers should be given security of tenure. Empower gram panchayats and gram sabhas to update land records. Leased out benami land should be acquired and distributed to the landless poor. Meanwhile, marginal and small land-owners should be assisted with institutional support and rural development schemes. Then, we need to streamline tenancy laws, bring changes in the Indian Evidence Act and so on. Again unexceptionable.

For reasons of space, let's ignore the third theme of alienation of tribal land, where again, one can't object to the recommendations. But all of these good recommendations are linked to the fourth theme of development of land markets, contract farming and implementation of homestead rights.

Here is a random selection of some recommendations: Speculative land markets in the immediate periphery of urban areas should be checked. To prevent long-term speculative transactions on agricultural land, the government should enact suitable laws. Farmers should be entitled to their share in rising land prices in the wake of urbanisation and any form of major investment. In cases of land acquisition, the company should provide facts and figures to those losing land on how the project will help them and the community in terms of full package of rehabilitation and settlement. In case the company purchases land directly in the market, the government should fix a floor price below which farmers cannot sell the land to any company. The Land Acquisition Act should be amended to incorporate compensation not only for the landed individuals, but also for those who are landless and dependent on the land for livelihoods, for homes and items obtained from local common property resources. There is more, but this will serve for illustrative purposes. It seems to me that such recommendations nullify the thrust of recommendations under the other three heads.