BS READS: Land revolution in Kashmir, but who is selling or buying?

Land prices have more than doubled officially to allure locals to sell, while land records have been cleansed and digitised over the past year to attract outsiders to buy without fear of fraud

The authorities in Kashmir have done something quite unusual. In January 2020, the Divisional Commissioner of Kashmir passed orders significantly increasing the market value of residential, commercial and agricultural land in all 10 districts of the territory for 2020-21.

The move was significant for two reasons.

One, Kashmir, which had been designated a Union Territory (UT) directly under control of India’s central government since August 2019, had never seen an official increase in land values of this magnitude.

And two, a couple of weeks before the order, separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani had issued a statement through the All