Land distribution is considered a State Policy to create economic equality within the agrarian structure. One of the means to reduce the disparity is to take away the excess lands from large holdings and redistribute them among the landless and small landholders. Ceiling legislation is a measure of land reforms. This is stated easily but its implementation is a very complicated and difficult affair. At the very start we are faced with several questions. First, what should be the ceiling limit and secondly should the idea of redistribution of lands be applied to all classes of lands? For example, a tea garden has a very big holding, but it is an economic unit and cannot be broken up if is to function at all.
In India, State Governments made a lot of efforts and enacted so many land reforms laws including Land Ceiling Acts to reduce the inequality of agriculture land. But it is difficult to say that it could hardly attain the desired goal. There is no uniformity among the state for ceiling limit. The Ceiling laws have vast list of exceptions which nullify the object of the Act and a many time it seems that Land Ceiling Act itself is hindrance in proper implementation. For instance, these Acts provide that the land for industrial purposes, grove land, land utilized for special cultivation, land held a cooperative farming society and land vested in Gram Sabha are exempted from the application of Ceiling Act.
INTRODUCTION
India occupies 2.4 percent of the total land area of the world, but supports 16.7 percent of the world population. As many as 570 million Indians, or 47.1 percent (including 6.7 per cent in urban areas), still depend on agriculture, which contributes 15.5 percent to Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Agriculture continues to be the mainstay of the Indian economy. Agriculture described as the backbone of Indian economy. But there are great disparities among the holders of land. This disparity needs to be reduced to the minimum in the interest of establishing equality in the economic sphere. The importance of agriculture compels to look into the agriculture land reforms. Land reform entails a need for redistribution of agriculture land in India if there is unequal or is not proportionate distribution of the same. One of the means to reduce the disparity is to take away the excess lands from large holdings and redistribute them among the landless and small landholders. Ceiling legislation is a tool to achieve this goal. The object of this paper is to study effects of Ceiling Laws. Almost every state in India enacted the Ceiling Laws but the desired goal could not be achieved due to some in-built flaws in legislations.
LAND REFORMS REMAIN AN UNFINISHED TASK
Land reform refers to an institutional measure directed towards altering the existing pattern of ownership, tenancy and management of land. India brought many fundamental changes specifically in land reforms. Evaluating the Indian land reforms, Dr K. Venkatasubramanian, Former Member Planning Commission, in his article, quoted recent comment from G. S. Balla. He observes: “The Indian Government was committed to land reforms and consequently laws were passed by all the states governments during the fifties with the avowed aim of abolishing landlordism, distributing land through imposition of ceilings, protection of tenants and consolidation of land holdings. One of the significant achievements of these acts was the abolition of absentee landlordism in several parts of India. However, land reforms were half hearted with regard to the imposition of ceilings and security of tenure. Consequently, the skewness in land distribution was not reduced in any significant manner. Further, a very large number of tenants were actually evicted in the name of self-cultivation. In spite of it, land reforms brought about a significant change in land relations in so far as self-cultivation, rather than absentee landlordism, became a predominant mode of production” The Government of India is aware that agricultural development in India could be achieved only with the reform of India’s rural institutional structure. The extent of the utilization of agricultural resources would be determined by the institutional framework under which the various inputs were put to use. M Dandekar observed: “Among the actions intended to release the force which may initiate or accelerate the process of economic growth, agrarian reform usually receives high priority”.
The land reform legislations were passed by all the State Governments during the fifties touching upon the following measures:
- Abolition of Zamindari system or abolition of intermediaries
- Maintenance of cultivating Rights
- Tenancy reforms
- Simplification of Land-tenure System
- Consolidation of holdings and prevention of their further fragmentation
- Ceilings on holdings and distribution of surplus land among the tillers.
- Uniform rule of succession
Land reforms therefore became one of the vital aspects of the agricultural development policy and incorporated in the various Five-Year Plans. So after Independence, attempts had been made to alter the pattern of distribution of land holdings on the basis of four types of experiments, namely;
- Land reforms “from above” through legislation on the lines broadly indicated by the Central Government, enacted by the State legislators, and finally implemented by the agencies of the State Government.
- Land reforms “from above” as in the case of Telangana and the Naxalite movement also to some extent in the case of the “Land Grab” movement.
- Land reforms through legislative enactments “from above “combined with peasant mobilization “from below” as in the case of controlled land seizure in West Bengal and protection of poor peasants in Kerala.
- Land reforms “from below” through permission of landlords and peaceful procession by peasants as in the case of Bhoodan and Gramdan.
The abolition of Zamindari system had favourable economic impact on the country. In 1950’s, laws had been passed in all the states to abolish intermediaries. All of them had two principles in common: 1) abolition of intermediaries between the states and the cultivators and 2) the payment of compensation to the owners. But there was no clear mention about just and equitable compensation. Therefore, the Zamindari Abolition Acts were challenged in the High Courts and the Supreme Court. As a result, we find a long list of cases decided on land rights by High Courts and the Supreme Court. Generally, these cases are about rights of Zamindars and particularly about the compensation. Courts have not got much opportunity to decide the rights of landless persons or small land holders. But the Government accomplished the task of abolishing intermediary tenures bringing nearly 20 million cultivators into direct contact with the state. Nearly 142.57 lakh acres were distributed to landless agriculturists after the successful completion of the Zamindari Abolition Act. By conferring the ownership of land to the tiller, the Government provided an incentive to improve cultivation. This paved the way for increase in efficiency and yield. This was an important step towards the establishment of socialism and the Government revenue increased. In fact, many efforts have been made by the Government in this direction but still a lot of is required to be done. As the efficacy of these Ceiling legislations was, however, considerably reduced for many reasons. For example, there are various exemption clauses in the Ceiling Acts and as a result, many land lords managed to retain considerable land areas under the various provisions of laws. The problems of transferring ownership rights from the actual cultivators of the land, the tenants, the sub-tenants, share croppers, therefore, remained far from resolved. As a result, land reforms remain incomplete and unfinished.
CEILINGS LEGISLATIONS
By 1961-62, ceiling legislation had been passed in all the states and it became one of the controversial measures of land reforms in India. The levels vary from State to State, and are different for food and cash crops. The ceiling on existing holdings varies from 20 acres to 125 acres. The unit of application of ceiling also differs from State to State. In Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, it is on the basis of a land holder, whereas in the other States it is one of the bases of a family.
In order to bring about uniformity, a new policy was evolved in 1971. The main features were:
- Lowering of ceiling to 28 acres of wet land and 54 acres of unirrigated land
- A change over to family rather than the individual as the unit for determining land holdings lowered ceiling for a family of five.
- Fewer exemptions from ceilings
- Retrospective application of the law for declaring benami transactions null and void; and
- No scope to move the court on ground of infringement of fundamental rights
Besides, national guidelines were issued in 1972, which specified the land ceiling limit as:
- The best land 10 acres
- For second class land 18-27 acres
- For the rest,27-54 acres with a slightly higher limit in the hill and desert areas
It is difficult to accept that the policies could be implemented properly. According to the figures available, 68.72 lakh acres of land have been declared surplus till June, 2005.The total area taken in possession as on 30th June 2005 was 59.74 lakh acres which comes to 86.92 % of the area declared surplus. The total area distributed till the end of the year has been 49.18, lakh acres. The area distributed constitutes 82.32% of the area taken possession of and 68.72 lakh acres of the area declared surplus. The total number of beneficiaries as on 30th June, 2005 was 53.17 lakh. SCs, STs and others account for 20.81, 8.35 and 23.95, lakh respectively constituting 39.13%, 15.74%and 45.04% respectively. A large farmer in India has 45 times more land than the “marginal” farmer. As many as 95.1% of Indian farmers are called “marginal, small and semi-medium”, meaning they own up to 2.47, 4.94 and 9.88 acres of land respectively. No more than 4.9% of farmers control 32% of India’s farmland. The biggest hindrance in equal distribution of agriculture land is exemption clause in all Ceiling Acts.
SUGGESTIONS AND CONCLUSION
The enforcement of the ceiling law was preceded by a public debate spread over several years. This enabled landowners to manipulate land records leading to fictitious and fraudulent partitions of lands among their relations, friends, fictitious trusts and societies. The extent of area declared surplus is much less than the estimated surplus, mainly due to a wide range of exemptions provided in ceiling laws. The operations of the ceiling law made virtually no impact on the agrarian structure. Exemptions for orchards, grazing land, stud farms, gaushalas, religious, charitable, educational trusts, sugarcane plantations, tank, and fisheries have made the ceiling laws virtually redundant. Even if the land was taken from them, it could not be distributed among the landless peasants. These Acts should properly be amended and implemented to bring equal distribution of agriculture land in India. Under the above Acts there are many exceptions in which land can be kept in possession in excess to the ceiling area and the provisions of the Acts do not apply .Despite the statutory provisions of the Acts if any land is held by any tenure holder in excess to the limit of ceiling area for the purpose of residential accommodation ,industrial purposes, gardening of tea or coffee or rubber plantation, land held for the purpose of stud farm, land held by public religious or charitable trust, land held by Gaushala in some states, grove land are exempted from the Acts.
The objectives are stated easily but their implementation is a very complicated and difficult affair. One of the major negative features of agrarian transition in India is the continued concentration of land in the hand of the upper strata of the rural society. This has not undergone any change in the last seventy years, despite the reforms. At the very start, we are faced with the question whether the idea of redistribution of lands should be applied to all classes of lands. For instance, a tea-garden has a very big holding, but it is an economic unit and cannot be broken up if it is to function at all. Similarly, a factory or an industrial unit also requires a minimum for its operation, educational institution, dispensaries, roads etc. Considering these and many other factors, Acts have provided that provisions shall not apply to different classes of lands.