28 September 2024 : Indian Express Editorial Analysis

1. Some hard land questions  

(Source: Indian Express; Section: The Ideas Page; Page: 13)

Topic: GS2– Governance

Context:

The article discusses the complex legal and institutional challenges in India’s land governance system, emphasizing the need for comprehensive reforms beyond technological solutions like digitization to unlock the country’s economic and social development potential.

Introduction: India’s Complex Land Governance Framework

• India’s land governance system is a complicated web of laws that has significantly impeded the country’s economic and social progress.
• The Economic Survey 2023-24 identified key challenges such as unclear property titles, insecure tenure, and limited access to economically viable land, all of which act as barriers to developmental goals.
• These challenges hinder critical objectives such as increasing rural household incomes, fostering job creation, enabling climate-resilient infrastructure projects, and addressing gender inequalities in property ownership.
• Additionally, land governance issues obstruct the efficient securitization of land for credit, regularization of benami (proxy) properties, and better targeting of subsidies.

Challenges in Land Governance: Legal and Institutional Barriers

• The 2024 Budget proposed solutions aimed at tackling these challenges through digitization and the use of technology.
• The measures include digitizing land records, establishing registries, and integrating land records into digital platforms like AgriStack.
• While these reforms are geared towards modernizing land administration, they do not address the core issues embedded in India’s legal and institutional frameworks.
• Problems such as the lack of secure property titles and inconsistent land records stem not merely from administrative inefficiencies but from the complex and often contradictory laws governing land ownership and use.
• These conflicting regulations have complicated land ownership, transfers, and use for all stakeholders.

Impact of Fragmented Legal Framework on Land Ownership and Use

• While digitization of urban land records is important, it is not a panacea for the problems of unclear land ownership or access to formal credit.
• The legal environment has evolved without sufficient constitutional constraints to ensure fairness, especially since property ownership was removed from the list of fundamental rights in India.
• Additionally, certain land laws are shielded from judicial review through the Ninth Schedule of the Indian Constitution, preventing landowners from seeking legal recourse against arbitrary administrative decisions.
• This has led to a situation where landholding values are undermined by laws that impose excessive restrictions on land transfers and discriminate based on land size and identity of landholders.
• These laws have also restricted land use, especially leasing and land-use conversions, which continues to be a significant problem in many states.

Fragmentation and Land Markets: Obstacles to Economic Efficiency

• The fragmentation of land in India is one of the most significant obstacles to agricultural productivity and investment.
• With 90% of farm households owning less than 2 hectares of land, economies of scale remain suboptimal.
• This situation has been exacerbated by weak land markets, shadow transactions, and high costs associated with land consolidation.
• Legal reforms aimed at facilitating land consolidation and enabling more efficient land use are urgently needed, as digitizing records alone cannot resolve these deeper issues.

Complexity of Land Laws and Rent-Seeking Behavior

• India’s complex land laws further undermine efficiency and equity, creating opportunities for rent-seeking behavior.
• For instance, in the state of Gujarat alone, land ceiling laws account for more than 40 types of land classifications, each subject to different regulations.
• This complexity not only creates administrative difficulties but also opens avenues for corruption, making land transactions cumbersome and costly.

Land Records and Technological Solutions: Incomplete Reforms

• The ongoing digitization of India’s land records faces significant challenges. The slow pace of digitization has delayed key infrastructure projects, while land ownership data remains outdated in several regions.
• The proposal to integrate land records with platforms like AgriStack falls short of addressing the legal and institutional issues that are at the heart of India’s land governance problems.
• For instance, Point of Sale (PoS) devices used for fertilizer subsidies are not integrated with land records, leading to inefficient subsidy targeting. Effective reform would require not just technological upgrades but a comprehensive overhaul of tenancy laws and land-use regulations.

Land Banks and Renewable Energy: Legal and Regulatory Hurdles

• The creation of land banks, intended to address the availability of land for renewable energy and infrastructure projects, faces several legal obstacles.
• Land constraints hamper renewable energy projects, and without addressing the underlying regulatory challenges, the promotion of land banks is unlikely to be effective.
• Legal reforms are necessary to unlock land for renewable energy and other large-scale infrastructure initiatives.

Conclusion: The Need for Comprehensive Legal Reforms

• While the proposed digitization efforts represent a step towards improving administrative capacity, they do not address the root causes of India’s land-related problems.
• A piecemeal, technology-focused approach is insufficient to tackle issues such as land fragmentation, informal tenancy, gender-based disparities, and inefficient land use.
• States must adopt a more systematic approach, such as the 6-S framework for evaluating the effectiveness of technology before implementation, to ensure that reforms are impactful.
• To fully harness the potential of India’s land resources for inclusive and sustainable development, comprehensive legal reforms are essential.
• These reforms must strengthen property rights, streamline regulations, and facilitate efficient land markets, while promoting land consolidation and enhancing women’s rights to land ownership.
• Only by addressing the underlying legal and institutional challenges can India truly unlock the economic and social potential of its land resources.

Objectives of the Land Reforms in India

Land reform is crucial in India’s agrarian economy due to its scarcity and unequal distribution of land. The following are the main objectives of land reforms in India: Social Justice: Eradicate feudalism, transfer land to the landless, and promote social and economic equality. Increased Agricultural Productivity: Allocate land for efficient farming to maximize its potential. Poverty Alleviation: Distribute land to the landless to improve their socioeconomic status and reduce rural poverty. Tenancy Reforms: Protect tenants’ rights, ensure tenure security, establish fair rents, and prohibit unjust eviction. Land Holdings Consolidation: To improve agricultural output and cultivation efficiency, and avoid land fragmentation. They also aimed to reduce rural poverty, improve tenant security, create a more equitable society, and enhance agricultural productivity.

PYQ: State the objectives and measures of land reforms in India. Discuss how land ceiling policy on landholding can be considered as an effective reform under economic criteria. (150 words/10m) (UPSC CSE (M) GS-3 2023)

Practice Question:  India’s land governance framework, characterized by complex legal and institutional challenges, has hindered economic and social development. Critically examine the need for comprehensive legal reforms to address issues in land ownership, while assessing the potential and limitations of digitization in resolving these challenges. (250 words/15 m)