Land ownership is central to agriculture growth but lakhs of rural landless poor are deprived of homestead and cultivable land as the land reforms laws are not been implemented in last 70 years. The results of this apathy are found in the form of farmer suicides, distress sale of agro-products, distress migration, hunger and malnutrition, food insecurity and less farm productivity in the State. The main objective of the Land Reforms Act was doing away with unequal holding of land and distribution of surplus land out of land ceiling. It aims at abolition of large holdings and all kinds of intermediaries, enforcing ceiling, distribution of land, consolidation of fragmented holdings, reform in tenancy, recognising rights of agriculture workers and sharecroppers, completion of survey and settlement, preparation of land records, protection of SCs and STs from land alienation and reform in land revenue administration.
In order to fulfil these series of objectives, laws have been enacted by the State Government as land is under the State List. The laws include, The Estate Abolition Act, The Odisha Land Reforms Act, The
Survey and Settlement Act, The Odisha Government Land Settlement Act, The Odisha Prevention of Land Encroachment Act, The Consolidation of Fragmented Holdings Act and The Bonded Labour Abolition Act etc. But these acts are not being implemented by revenue bureaucracy in the interest of the landless poor.
The Estate Abolition Act and The Land Reforms Act have not been implemented for last 25 years because of cases in courts by the then kings and Zamindars against the Government challenging the implementations of various provisions of the laws. Finally, these Acts get a place in the Ninth Scheduled of the Constitution of India. So, almost 25 years have been wasted in enforcing the important provisions of land reforms, especially in the abolition of estate, enforcement ceiling laws and distribution of ceiling surplus land.
The land owning feudal classes have benefited with compensation for abolition of estate and managed to hold huge land by cunningly avoiding the ceiling laws. But on the contrary, the real farmers have been deprived of record of rights over the land they have been cultivating since generations. In the absence of survey and settlement and distribution of land, a vast majority of farmers, sharecroppers and landless agricultural workers, have been deprived of record of rights. The huge land available with temples and mutts has been taken over by the Government under the Odisha Hindu Religion Endowment Act, but they have been left to its trustees for management whereas it was expected to distribute this among the cultivators.
The post-90s experience shows the move of the Government in allocating land to the corporates, companies for various commercial and non-agriculture purpose but not to the landless farmers for cultivation and also it is unfortunate that the different categories of assigned land reserved for distribution such as ceiling surplus land, waste land, Bhoodan land and Anabadi land are being given to the companies but not to the farmers. The shift in non –agricultural use of land and non-availability of private land for agriculture has led to deprivation and penury of agricultural workers and sharecroppers of the State.
The implementation of land reforms was one of the major recommendations of the National Commission for Farmers (NCF)in the context of the ongoing agrarian distress in the country, but no attempt has been made by the Central or State Government to address this issue of land ownership. It is said in the NCF report that land reforms are essential to ensure access of a major section of farmers, especially landless sharecroppers, Dalit and Adivasi farmers and small and marginal landholders to land for both crop and livestock. Studies have established that the inequality in land ownership has been impacting the status of food and nutrition security for a long time.
The NSS report 1991-92 says the share of bottom 50 per cent of rural households (12per cent) are landless; and 40per cent having sub-marginal holdings below one acre) own only 3 per cent of the country’s total land whereas the top 10 per cent above five acres owned about 55 per cent of land. The huge inequality in productive assets ownership has many ramifications over social, political and economic life of the country; and it is very much linked to the continued agrarian crisis.
There are landless sharecroppers cultivating land of absentee land owners and privileged land owners those who cannot cultivate. Tribal and Dalit farmers without records of right over the land have been cultivating for generations.
A majority of the informal sharecroppers are illiterate and unorganized having no access to formal institutional credit, having no bank accounts and formal identity as farmers. In the majority of suicide cases in Odisha, it was revealed that most of the farmers who committed suicide are sharecroppers and deprived of institutional credit and access to compensations of the Government and insurance companies to meet the crop loss.
The new trend shows a shift of sharecropping due to entry of corporate and contract farming where the absentee land owners prefer to lend their land to companies for contract farming which assures guaranteed higher return, rather than giving it to the landless poor sharecroppers who have no resources to invest over the land except their physical labour. This process has encouraged concentration of productive assets in the hands of a few and has deprived many poor households of owning land; and they are ultimately prohibited from productive engagement. The monopolization of production will pave the way of dependency of more numbers of poor people on food subsidy schemes of the Government out of public funds.
Record of right over land is considered as the basis of a farmer’s identity and access to any kind of Government subsidy scheme considering the importance of the issues the NCF has recommended for distribution of ceiling-surplus land and wasteland among the landless farmers. The NCF has also recommended that the prime agricultural land and forest must not be diverted to the corporate sector for nonagricultural purpose. But there has been no attempt to impose any form of restriction over the nonagricultural use of land. The huge diversion has been restricting the access of marginal farmers to common property resources, forest, grazing land, pastures, water bodies and other forms of bio-resources for agriculture-based livelihood. During last fifty years, due to involuntary displacement, many farmers have become marginalised and further pushed into the periphery after losing traditional access to common property resources.
The linkage of land reforms with the issue of marginalised farmers and their vulnerability has not been sufficiently discussed in public domain. The Government has almost no initiative for creation of new land for agriculture and forestry purposes by reclamation of wasteland, specially the mined-out land in the mining areas of theState. Also, thousands of acres of land have become wasteland because of deforestation and soil erosion. These categories of land can be developed for their productive use by distributing/leasing to landless farmers for integrated agriculture, animal husbandry, fish farming, herbal garden and agro forestry to generate employment and boost growth by using existing agricultural technologies.
The production of milk, meat, egg, fruits and vegetables and fish in the State can be improved to meet the growing demand of the domestic market and for export. This will bring food and nutritional security of the rural households engaged in agriculture.
Land being a State subject, it is the duty of the State Government to implement land reforms, especially land distribution, to ensure asset equality, agriculture production and growth to build an inclusive
Odisha. The Government must implement the law in a time bound manner and provide 10 decimals of homestead land and five acres of cultivable land to each landless family in the State and a special session of the State Assembly be convened for holding discussion on the land issues and to enact the Homestead Land Right Act and the Odisha Sharecropper’s Protection Act.
