Land Reforms

Land Reforms
What is Land Reform?

Main Objectives of Land Reform Act

Redistribution of land from the

haves to the have not

Includes regulation of ownership,

operation, leasing, sales and

inheritance of land

Why Land Reforms are necessary?

Helps in bridging the income gap
Alleviates Poverty
Provides income and financial
security
Helps in securing financial help :
Secure loans

To make redistribution of Land to

make a socialistic pattern of
society. Such an effort will reduce
the inequalities in ownership of
land
To ensure land ceiling and take
away the surplus land to be
distributed among the small and
marginal farmers.

To legitimize tenancy with the

ceiling limit

To register all the tenancy with

the village panchayats

To make sure that tenants are not

rejected any benefits as they do
not possess valid possession
certificates

Land Reforms
Impediments to Land Reform
initiatives

Implementation Issues

Tenancy law and ceiling law not

properly followed

Exceptions loopholes and

benamis were in plenty

Unorganised Sector

Little success without support of

organisation of rural workers

Corruption and Bureaucratic

problems

Burden of crushing poverty

Low Productivity and low returns

leading to people venturing out
to different sectors

Solution

Identification of genuine tenants

Provide mutual support system

among the genuine tenants

Legal and physical support from

being evicted

Changing the attitude of the

bureaucratic attitude. eg
:Operation Barga

Effectiveness to be correlated to
productivity rather than area
covered under the law

Productivity
Small and marginal farmers are defined as those with less than
2 hectares of land
In 2002-03, such farmers made up ~80% of all farmers in India
and together they own 43% of total land in the country
Productivity is measured in terms of value of crops, not quantity
of crops
Though a lot of studies have shown the inverse relationship,
there is no concrete proof saying so.
Mechanization increases yield and large farmers tend to use
more mechanization
Average productivity of Indian farmers is much lower than that
of global average
More use of fertilizers may have ecological impacts

Indebtedness
Distress Phenomenon
In most developing economies
including in India, farmers
indebtedness has been treated as
distress phenomenon
Loan taken is used for purposes
other than agriculture related
activities

The dependence on non

institutional sources has
decreased but it is still significant
The recent insurance policy
introduced by government might
be able to save lot of farmers

Tribal is born, bred and buried in debt is a popular saying in tribal areas

Tenancy Reform: -

The land reforms refer to the reforming of defective structure of the land holdings and are a planned and institutional
organization of the relation between man and land

The major planks of tenancy reform included : 1)Security of tenure

2)Termination of tenancy
3)Resumption for personal cultivation by the landlord
4)Regulation of rent and confirmation of ownership rights

) In the national guidelines the following measures were communicated to the state
governments for incorporation in the state legislation: 1)Security of the tenancy to be conferred on the actual cultivator
2)Fair rent to be fixed between 20 and 25 percent of the gross produce
3)Landowners may be permitted to cultivate land for their personal use
4)The surrender of the tenancy rights with mutual consent
5)In respect of some of the area, the landlord - tenant relationship to be ended and the tenant cultivator be brought directly
into contact with the state
6)Disabled persons, defence personnel and other such exemptions to be allowed to lease their land
7)The term "personal cultivation" should be clearly defined if landlords are allowed to remove tenants in order to resume
cultivation
8)Tenancy records should be corrected and oral tenancies should be abolished

Effect of tenancy reforms laws in each state

The Lorenz curve is a measure of the
distribution of wealth (or income or other
factors) in a society

Change in distribution of operational

holdings