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At a time when States such as Haryana, Punjab, West Bengal and Rajasthan have amended their Land Ceiling Acts by increasing the land holding limit, the Centre has proposed that every State should revise its ceiling limit to a maximum of 15 acres.
The land holding limit in Haryana and Punjab, after recent amendments to the State laws, is 18 hectares and 20.5 hectares respectively. West Bengal (where the limit is 24.2 acres) and Rajasthan had relaxed their limits for encouraging industries in the States.
The draft National Land Reform Policy (NLRP), prepared by a task force headed by Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh said if the existing limit was more than five to 10 acres in the case of irrigated land and 10 to 15 acres for non-irrigated land, the States should revise the ceiling limit.
The NLRP, which also includes the draft National Right to Homestead Bill, 2013, will be placed before a meeting of the Revenue Ministers from all States to be held in Hyderabad on April 6. The Centre, a key source in the Government said, planned to bring the NLRP before Parliament in the monsoon session of Parliament.
The draft policy said there was an urgent need to re-visit the land ceiling limits in different categories to be implemented with retrospective effect.
“Excluding the achievements of some States like West Bengal and Kerala, the imposition of land ceilings has not led to any worthwhile redistribution of agricultural land in the rest of the country,” it noted.
Political will lacking
The note said apart from defects in agricultural land ceiling laws, lack of political will was also a reason for the situation.
The policy said absentee landlords or non-resident landowners should have a lower level of ceiling. It suggested that the ceiling limit for absentee landlords and non-resident landowners may be fixed at 50 per cent of the normal ceiling limits for various categories.
“Absentee landlords and non-resident landowners may be strictly defined,” the draft NLRP added.
It has also suggested that exemptions given to religious, educational, charitable, research and industrial organisations should be discontinued.
“These institutions shall not be allowed to use more than one unit of 15 acres,” the policy stated.
The policy urged the States to adopt a ‘single window’ system for re-distribution of ceiling surplus land within a specified time frame.
“All States shall impose ceiling not only on ‘ownership’ land holdings but also on ‘operational’ land holdings to prevent concentration of large tracts of land through lease-in,” it said.
The policy added that under no circumstance a person, institution or an organisation be allowed to own more land than the ceiling.
The policy also suggested that the Benami Transactions (Prohibition of the Right to Recover Property) Act, 1989 should be amended to curb evasions of ceiling laws through fraudulent transactions.
jigeesh.am@thehindu.co.in
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