Access to Land for the Poor in Odisha (1947-2011) - An Overview

 

Dr. Sarat  Parida 

 

ABSTRACT:

One of the major objectives of Land reforms programme in the country after independence was to redistribute the land wealth so as to provide social justice to a large chunk of agricultural population especially the poor and the landless. Redistributive land reform measures are indeed effective means to provide access to productive resources mainly land to social classes and groups that traditionally lack access to land. In a predominantly agrarian state like Odisha endemic poverty among the rural populace is visibly linked with their lack of access to land. Hence access to and control over land resources hold the key to poverty alleviation and economic development of the agrarian population. Under the prodding of the Planning Commission and with the overall objective of reducing poverty, raising agricultural productivity and promoting social inclusion the Government of Odisha has adopted a number of measures to improve the access of the poor and socially excluded groups to land. Though the government has distributed 1, 53,114 acres of ceiling surplus land, 5, 79,984 acres of bhoodan land and 7, 26,629 acres of waste land among the landless families by 2005 to improve Poor’s access to land the incidence of poverty has not shown any significant decline in the state but the proportion has declined from 66.18 in 1973-74 to 46.40 in 2004-05.

 

 

INTRODUCTION:   

One of the major objectives of Land reforms programme in the country after independence was to redistribute the land wealth so as to provide social justice to a large chunk of agricultural population especially the poor and the landless. In fact the skewed nature of land ownership pattern in the country at the time of independence with a quarter of the rural households possessing no land at all and another one-fifth possessing less than one acre each provided the rational for undertaking land reform.¹ Redistributive land reforms measures are indeed effective means to ensure access to productive resources mainly land to social classes and groups that traditionally lack access to land.² Ostensibly the idea stemmed from the Constitutional provisions particularly Article 39 of the Constitution of India which provided that : (1) the ownership and control of the material resources of the country should be so distributed as best to serve the common good; and (2) the operation of the economic system should not result in a concentration of wealth or a means to production to the common detriment.³ The First Five Year Plan outlining the  objective of land reforms stated: the land policy should be such as will reduce disparities in wealth and income, eliminate exploitation, provide security for tenants and workers and finally promise equality of status and opportunity to different sections of rural population.⁴ In fact, in a predominantly agrarian state like Odisha with 80 per cent of population  depending on agriculture, endemic poverty among the rural populace is visibly linked with their lack of access to land.

Hence access to and control over land resources hold the key to poverty alleviation and economic development of the agrarian population.

 

Though under Indian Constitution land reforms was made a state subject, legislations on land reforms are usually framed and executed by the state governments on the basis of the guidelines suggested by the Planning Commission and the Government of India. Under the prodding of the Planning Commission and with the overall objective of reducing poverty, raising agricultural productivity and promoting social inclusion the Government of Odisha has adopted a number of measures to improve the access of the poor and socially excluded groups to land. The measures actually aimed at providing access to land to the poor include distribution of ceiling surplus lands, waste lands and the bhoodan lands. The paper intend to examine the land legislations enacted to improve the access of the poor to land and the extent to which the land distribution policy have been successful in the state and the steps need to be adopted.

 

Ceiling on Landholding:

Ceiling on Landholding was devised as an effective strategy to alter the imbalance in landownership pattern that existed in the country in which a substantial land wealth was concentrated in the hands of some social groups. Curiously in 1951, about 74.6 per cent of the household in Odisha possessed lands ranging from 1-5 acres and it comprised 30 per cent of the total land of the state. Only 11 per cent of the household had owned above 10 acres of land and it comprised 48 per cent of the land area.⁵ In fact the idea behind ceiling was to set a limit on landownership and to distribute the surplus land among the landless or land poor on certain priorities. Urging its necessity in the context of Indian agrarian set-up the Congress Agrarian Reforms Committee constituted under the chairmanship of J. C. Kumarappa  in its Report submitted in July, 1949 observed: In the first place the supply of land in relation to the number of people seeking it is so limited that not to put a ceiling on individual holding would be irrational and unjust.⁶ However in the first phase of land reform programme the abolition of intermediaries and tenancy reform received top priority and the ceiling issue was not pursued vigorously. In January, 1959 the Indian National Congress at its Nagpur session passed a resolution urging the state governments to fix ceiling on existing and future holdings and to pass necessary legislations to that effect by the end of 1959. In response to the resolution most of the states passed the necessary legislation by the end of 1961. However, the level of ceiling fixed on existing holdings in most of the states was generally much higher than that was proposed in the Second Five Year Plan. The level of ceiling on existing holdings was fixed at 50 acres in Assam, 25 acres in West Bengal irrespective of the size of the family or the quality of the soil.⁷

 

The Government of Odisha too passed the Odisha Land Reforms Act, 1960 in which the ceiling level was fixed at 25 standard acres⁸. But the Act was not brought into force immediately owning to lack of consensus within the ruling Congress-Ganatantra Parishad coalition with regard to ceiling and exemption limits. The ceiling level fixed at 25 standard acres in the Orissa Land Reforms Act, 1960 was reduced to 20 standard acres by the Odisha Act 13 of 1965. But again the ceiling provisions of Act 13 of 1965 were not made effective for long 7 years though it came into force on 7 January 1972. This long delay in bringing the law into force gave unrestrained and ample scope to big owners to resort to bogus transactions, to sell their excess lands or to make mala fide transfers in the name of relatives and all sorts of adjustments to evade the ceiling provisions.⁹

 

The Naxalite Movement in the late sixties in parts of the country especially in West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha gave a new thrust to the question of land ceiling. Consequently the Central Land Reforms Committee formulated the national guidelines on ceiling. The ceiling provisions of the Odisha Land Reforms Act were amended in the year 1973 in conformity with the national guidelines. Under this Act, the ‘family’, not the ‘individual’ was taken as a unit for the computation of ceiling. The ceiling area for a family of five members was fixed at 10 standard acres and for a family consisting more than five members an excess of two standard acres for each additional member was allowed subject to a maximum limit of 18 standard acres.¹⁰ The ceiling limit at 10 standard acres was again pitched high in view of the fact that in the whole state only 8.4 per cent of the cultivating families had in their possession more than 10 acres of land and in the coastal districts only 5.3 per cent of the agricultural families had more than 10 acres of land.¹¹

 

The ceiling provisions in the Odisha Land Reforms Act was further amended in 1974 i.e., by Act 9 of 1974. It stipulated that 70 per cent of the surplus land vested in the government was to be settled with persons belonging to the Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes in proportion to their respective population in the village in which the lands were located and the remaining lands with persons of other categories. The State Government has been allotting ceiling surplus land up to 0.7 acre free of salami to the landless for agricultural purposes since 1974-75. How the ceiling laws have not yielded fair results in the state is evident from the fact that by the end of March 2005, only 153114 acres of ceiling surplus land have been distributed among 141769 landless families including 50426 acres to 48568 Scheduled Caste and 66073 acres to 62996 Scheduled Tribe landless families.¹² Land measuring 10068.324 acres involved in litigation is now pending in different courts.¹³

 

Bhoodan Programme:

Along with the government sponsored land reform programmes the bhoodan programme originally conceived by Acharya Vinoba Bhave and launched in the country in the early fifties of the last century was also extended to Odisha. The programme was an attempt at land reforms¹⁴ and intended to solve the land problem in the country in a unique way by making land available through voluntary donations for distribution to the landless and the land poor. To facilitate the donation of land to the movement and to provide for the distribution of such lands, the Government of Odisha enacted the Orissa Bhoodan Yagna Act, 1953. The Act provided for the establishment of a Bhoodan Yagna Samiti in the state of Odisha. The Samiti was authorized by the Act to receive donations or grants of land and to distribute the lands vested in it to landless persons.¹⁵ Since then lands were received by way of donation from benevolent landowners and the same were distributed among the landless persons under Orissa Bhoodan Yagna Act, 1953 and Rule 1954 which was later replaced by Orissa Bhoodan & Gramdan Act, 1970 and Rules 1972. However, the Bhoodan Movement which subsequently unfolded the programme of Gramdan, on the whole lost its momentum after the Fourth Five Year Plan (1969-74) period especially when the ceiling surplus provisions of the land reform laws came in to force. But though the programme lost its charm in the long run it was able to garner substantial acreage of land in the state. In fact by 2005,  5,79, 984 acres of bhoodan land have been distributed among 1,52,852 landless person in the state out of a total area of.6,38,706 acres of land received by way of donation and 58,722 acres land is awaiting distribution .¹⁶

 

Waste Land distribution:

The distribution of waste land to the landless for agricultural purposes formed another important item of land redistributive programme of the state government. The Orissa Government Land Settlement Act, 1962 was enacted with the objective of governing the settlement of wastelands in a planned manner uniformly throughout the state. This Act came to override the provisions of various Acts, Rules, orders, customary practices and usages that were in force concerning to the settlement of waste land in various parts of the state.  Section 2 of the Act stipulated that 70% of government waste land shall be settled with persons belonging to STs and SCs in proportion to their respective population in the village in which the lands are situated and the remaining lands shall be settled with other persons not belonging to the aforesaid categories.¹⁷ Since 1974-75 the State Government is allotting waste land up to one acre to the landless families for agricultural purpose. By the end of 2004-05 about 7, 26629 acres of government wasteland have been distributed among 467724 landless families including 1, 73, 339 acres to 1, 01, 769 SC and 3, 7926 acres to 2, 26494 ST families.¹⁸

 

CONCLUSION:    

Despite all these efforts access to land still remains a distant dream for the vast majority of poor in the state. This is gleaned from the fact that the 59^th round of National Sample Survey found that in 2003,  9.6 per cent of the household in Odisha were  landless a slight lower than the national average of 10.0 per cent.¹⁹Further despite measures adopted by the government to transfer land to the landless the incidence of poverty has not shown any significant decline in the state as the proportion had declined to 46.40 in 2004-05 from 66.18 in 1973-74.²⁰Data reveals that high incidence of poverty prevails among the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe population in the state. Around 75 per cent among the Scheduled Tribe population and 50 per cent among the Scheduled Caste were below the poverty line as compared to 37 per cent for Other Backward Caste group and 23 per cent for others in 2004-05.²¹ Further though land is given to the landless and the poor under the aforementioned programmes there is not enough scope left for land distribution in the state. This is evident from the fact that during the year 2011-12 i.e., by the end of December 2011 only 319.729 acres of wasteland has been distributed among 356 landless families. Similarly during the year only 2.52 acres of ceiling surplus land has been distributed among 5 ST beneficiaries.²² The distribution programme of bhoodan land in the state has remained almost negligible for the last several decades and as data indicate since 1991 the distribution figure of bhoodan land remains unchanged in the state.²³ Thus the traditional redistributive land reform policy has failed to yield much result in terms of improving the rural Poor’s access to land. Therefore to sustain the land distribution programme and in the context of the existing ceiling law not yielding adequate land for redistribution and waste lands under government being reserved for communal or industrial purpose, it is essential to develop a new pragmatic approach. The new policy apart from plugging the loopholes in the ceiling laws and review of exemption limits also take into account the option of lowering the ceiling limit  to a realistic level in order to make available more ceiling surplus land for distribution among the landless and semi-landless poor. Further in Odisha where the ceiling law is applied to ownership holdings and not to operational holdings, the law should be amended to make ceiling applicable to operational holdings. Besides steps should be taken to expedite the distribution of lands that is remaining undistributed in the state owing to litigation or other reasons.

 

REFERENCES:

1.        Walinsky Louis J. (ed.), The Selected Papers of Wolf Ladejinsky, Agrarian Reforms as Unfinished Business, New York, 1977, p. 382. Misra S. Politico-Peasantry Conflict in India, New Delhi, 1991, p. 80.

2.        Bakshi A. Social Inequality in Land Ownership in India: A Study with Particular Reference to West Bengal, Social Scientist, Volume 39(9-10), September-October 2008, pp. 95-116.

3.        Basu DD.  Shorter Constitution of India, New Delhi, 1981, p. 230.

4.        The Samaja (Odia Daily News paper), Cuttack, 29 October 1970.

5.        Government of Odisha, Report of the Administration Enquiry Committee, Vol. I, Cuttack, 1958, pp. 166-67.

6.        Joshi PC. “Land Reforms in India” In Desai AR. (ed.), Rural Sociology in India, Bombay (5^th edition), 1995, p. 453.

7.        Report of the Administration Enquiry Committee, op. cit., p. 176.

8.        Government of Odisha, Land Tenure and Land Reforms in Orissa, Cuttack, 1962, p. 138.

9.        Parida S.  Land Reforms in Orissa 1947-76, Unpublished Ph. D Thesis, Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, 2010, p. 204.

10.     Government of Odisha, Orissa Land Reforms Code, Cuttack, 1987, p.28.

11.     The Samaja, op. cit., 1 June 1972.

12.     Sahoo, B. & Dharmalingam G. Land Reform and Management, Bhubaneswar, 2006, p. 176.

13.     Government of Odisha, Report on the Activities of Revenue and Disaster Management Department for the Year 2011-12, p. 25, Retrieved from http://www.orissa.gov.in/revenue/activity-rep/2011-12.

14.     Chandra Bipan et el, India After Independence 1947-2000, New Delhi, 2000. p.392.

15.     Government of Odisha, Orissa Acts, Regulations and Ordinances 1953, Cuttack, 1954, pp. 53-58.

16.     Status Report - Land Rights and Ownership in Orissa, UNDP, August 2008, p.22.  http//www.undp.org/content/dam/India/docs/land_rights_ownership_in_orissa.pdf.

17.     Behuria NC. (ed.), Orissa State Gazetteers, Vol. I, Cuttack, 1990, p. 387.

18.     Sahoo B. & Dharmalingam G. op.cit., p. 176.

19.     Haque T.  Improving the Rural Poors’ Access to Land in India, p. 5. Retrieved from http// indiagovernance.gov.in/files/improving-rural-poor-access-to-land-t-haque.pdf.

20.     Mishra S. Poverty and Agrarian Distress in Orissa, IGIDR, Mumbai, 2009, p. 4. Retrieved from - http// www.igidr.ac.in/pdf/publication/WP-2009-0006.pdf.

21.     Panda RK. & Sahu A. Trends and Dimensions of Rural Poverty in Orissa, In Odisha Review, September-October, 2011, Bhubaneswar, p.106.

22.     Report on the Activities of Revenue and Disaster Management Department for the Year 2011-12, op. cit., p. 25.

23.     Sahoo, B. & Dharmalingam G. op. cit., p.139. Report on the Activities of Revenue and Disaster Management Department for the Year 2011-12, op. cit., p. 25.