Land Bill;The more you discuss,the more it becomes a farce

The discussions on the land acquisition bill seem to be unproductive. Despite government’s repetitive attempts to enact the bill into legislation, they failed to do so. So,  more discussions and debates are really not needed. Now that parliament session has gone into oblivion, let us reschedule our thinking and consider whether this is required or not?  Let us assume that we are in a free market for land.  When there is no embargo for anything, there is no point of enacting a bill. Why this type of thinking evolves?  Because any number of rules you write, landowners and buyers will identify a route to break those rules. So, enacting of any legislation for this land bill will provoke and bring more corruption.

As per the statistics, the landowners and their holdings spreading across the rural areas in India are insignificant as compared to the world standard. They are not so economically profitable. Since 1947, our population has increased four times, but there is a diminishing growth of land.  If the land holdings are economical, they will want to sell.  The owners will be tempted to do so. Now, when the land bill will be enacted and  its rules are truly obeyed by land owners and potential buyers, then the selling and buying will be next to impossible. The poor people in rural areas who have land, will get just stuck and eventually will be poorer. Statistically, the agriculture output stands at a meager 15% of India’s GDP.  Yet the majority of the total population of India stays in rural areas.  Indian agriculture is grossly inefficient and productivity of the land is awful.  If you compare India’s productivity of rice and wheat, the two major food grains with that of China, you will become woeful.

Rural people desperately want to come out from their shelters and want to settle in the cities.  It is a pathetic situation, but there is no alternative. Rural life is full of painstaking and toiling labor and shocking deprivation. The ignominy, humiliation and deep ignorance mostly engulf their lives.  If nearly 70% of Indians still live in rural areas, it is due to the reason that they don’t have any alternative. The day, they will find opportunities, they will move on. We must frame the friendly norms and rules so that people can move off the land  voluntarily. 

Instead of doing unnecessary talks, sometimes being converted to skirmishes in the Parliament to legislate this land bill, we first find out the ways how rural Indians can sell their land and migrate.  Many rural Indians may not have a clear title to the land.  So, the property rights issue needs to be addressed before they can sell their land.  Under these circumstances, how a land acquisition bill will really work, it is a big question for introspection.  Instead of doing  exercise to enact a bill, it is far more important to devise a suitable system that will determine land ownership.  To find out a suitable condition for this sensible and touchy issue, the government must take everybody’s opinion starting from economists to lawyers, bureaucrats to businessmen and local traders and farmers. 

: 2 :

There is a need to overhaul the laws dealing with title, registration and ownership. If a person stays in a particular land for a considerable period of time, say five years and more, let us treat him as the owner.  If because of any reason, matter of ownership is not settled amicably and become disputed, the titles have to be jointly held by both the parties and the money collected out of the sale are to be distributed proportionately.

Ultimately, we must develop a free market for land and if not, then millions of people will leave the countryside in the course of time and enter the cities to create an administrative and social hotchpotch. So, it is a high time for the Indian government to work out a feasible plan for a free market to sell land.