Other States - Bihar   

Bihar Govt. mulls new law to curb land grab

Patna: The Bihar Government is actively considering a proposal to enact a new legislation to check the sale of prime government lands allotted on lease in perpetuity or for a fixed period as per the recommendations of the Bandopadhyay Commission on Land Reforms.

“A proposal to bring a new Bill in the monsoon session of the State legislature is under active consideration. We want to prohibit sale of Khas Mahal land,” State Land Reforms and Revenue Department sources said.

An expert panel, headed by the department’s principal secretary, would prepare the draft for the proposed legislation for approval of the State Cabinet, sources said.

Growing urbanisation of Patna and other townships had sparked off a “systematic” transfer and re-transfer of Khas Mahal land by the original lessees without even the knowledge of the government.

This has set off a profiteering trend which is in violation of the Khas Mahal agreements with the State. In Patna it is a common practice to sell off vast tracts of these lands at huge market prices, whereas the government gets a pittance in rent from the new buyer, they said.

Giving legal safeguards to ‘Bataidars’, toning up revenue administration, identification and taking over of ceiling surplus land possessed illegally by landed class and estates, besides addressing the discrepancies in contract farming were among other prescriptions suggested by the Bandopadhyay Commission to the Bihar government.

The commission has already submitted its report to the state government.

Better management of Khas Mahal land, making the mutation process simple and mandatory, updating land records and filling up of vacancies in the land reform department were the other recommendations of the commission, official sources said.

The report has blamed lack of Bataidari rights, absence of proper land revenue administration mechanisms and accumulation of land by estates in various districts on the failure to effect land reforms in Bihar, the sources reveal.

“These have also been cited as reasons for unrest and growth of Naxalite movement in the State,” they said.

Soon after becoming the Chief Minister in November, 2005, Nitish Kumar had constituted the panel and sought its recommendations in a bid to give a momentum to the process of land reforms in Bihar which has remained a key issue following the abolition of zamindari in 1950.

The 125-page report submitted to the Chief Minister secretariat consists of nine chapters dealing with various issues relating to agrarian situation and its inherent contradictions in the State.

The Bandopadhyay panel recommended legal safeguards for Bataidars and insisted upon the need for improving the relation between land-owners and share-croppers so that existing animosity between the two classes would be minimised, the sources said.

Better management of Khas Mahal land, making the mutation process simple and mandatory, updating land records and filling up of vacancies in the land reform department were among other recommendations of the commission, they said.

An emphasis has also been laid in the report on ceiling-surplus land and contract farming. A huge ceiling-surplus land is in possession of the landed gentry, especially estates in East Champaran, West Champaran, Gopalganj and Purnia, the commission said recommending that the State identify and take over such land.

Conservative estimates of the ceiling-excess land with the estates and big land-owners have been assessed at over three lakh acres, the sources said.

Naxalism in Bihar gets sustenance from age-old exploitation of agricultural labourers and the anger and resentment among them at the general apathy of the authorities.

Left parties and other major political parties in the State believe that land reforms is the key to check extremism in Bihar. -- PTI

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Bihar Govt. mulls new law to curb land grab
Nitish issues directives after sex workers’ plea
10 lakh demanded for schoolboy’s release

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu