1. Introduction New opportunities for increasing access to land: The example of Andhra Pradesh K. Raju, K. Akella, K. Deininger 1 Given the inequality in the distribution of productive assets, in particular land, and the high level of social stratification which the country inherited from colonial times, land reform and land policy have occupied center stage in India s policy debate for a long time. Even now, land is not only an economic asset but also has enormous social, emotive, and psychological relevance, with possession of secure rights to land enhancing the landholder s social status in the community and his or her personal dignity and self-respect. In AP, about 70% of all court cases are related to land. In fact, far beyond India, practitioners of development now realize that access to land and other assets has far-reaching implications not only for the productivity of resource use in rural economies but also for households ability to insure against shocks, to participate in political decision-making, and their ability to invest in productivity improvements and education for the next generation. Especially for women, who in India are heavily discriminated against in wage labor markets - often receiving only two thirds of the wage received by males for the same task- access to land can provide a very important improvement in livelihoods. A recent survey in AP shows that, if asked whether they would prefer land or livestock of a much higher value, a majority of both males but also females chose land, illustrating the significant role which land ownership can play in empowering women. Following successful abolition of intermediaries immediately after independence, award of property rights to tenants through tenancy laws, government acquisition of above-ceiling land from large land owners and its subsequent transfer to small farmers, and distribution of government waste land were taken up as key mechanisms to improve the operational and ownership distribution of land. However, even though agriculture remains the prime source of livelihood for the 70% of India s population living in rural areas, the emphasis on land reform has, after the mid-1980s, given way to a general focus on poverty reduction wherein provision of access to land had often low priority. This is not due to the fact that land issues have been resolved; in fact the importance of land to provide livelihood opportunities for the weakest sections is illustrated by the fact that, according to the 10 th plan, 77% of SCs and 90% of STs are landless and at the same time lack any productive assets and sustainable employment opportunities. The agricultural census shows that out of the SC households who are able to work, only 12% have access to lands (about 50% with irrigation facility), a figure that has decreased from 23% in 1961. As a consequence, even though SCs comprise 16% of the state s population, they control only 7.5% of operated area and SCs and STs average landholding has decreased from 1.19 and 2.33 to 0.83 and 1.44 ha, respectively. In fact, the share of agricultural laborers increased from 57% in 1961 to 72% in 1991. While this implies that land access remains a central issue for India s rural economy and in particular the most disadvantaged parts of its population, social and economic circumstances have changed significantly since land reform legislation was first introduced. The changed social and political environment implies that the mechanisms that will be most effective in increasing land access by the poor may have to be adapted as well. In this paper, we illustrate how the Indira Kranthi Patham (IKP) program in AP has identified new opportunities of addressing long-standing challenges for increasing land access by the poor and discuss possible implications for AP and other Indian states. Section two provides the background by reviewing the history of land reforms in this state and the resulting opportunities on different types of land. Section three describes the different mechanisms used by the program to help implement existing programs more effectively and to broaden opportunities of land access and use for the poor and the quantitative impact of doing so. Section four concludes by drawing out implications for AP and beyond. 1 K. Raju is Prinicpal Secretary, Rural Development, Government of AP, K. Akella is State Project Corrdinator Land for IKP, and K. Deininger is a Lead Economist at the World Bank. We thank discussants at the MoRD/WB workshop on Land policies for sustainable growth and poverty reduction held in Jan. 2006 in New Delhi for very constructive comments and the DFID/World Bank collaborative program on land policies for financial support. The views presented in this paper are those of the authors alone. The authors can be contacted at krajuhyd@yahoo.com. 1
2. History of land reforms in Andhra Pradesh Following independence, Andhra Pradesh pursued land reform with great zeal with impressive results, at least on paper. Tenancy restrictions in the state s Andhra and Telangana areas resulted in some 107,000 tenant families receiving ownership rights to almost 600,000 acres. Land ceiling laws helped transfer another 582,319 acres to 540,344 beneficiary families, implying a total of 647,344 beneficiaries or about 5% of rural households in the state. 2 An even larger number benefited from wasteland distribution programs which, up to March 2002, resulted in distribution of 42 lakh (4.2 million) acres to approximately 29 lakh (2.9 million) eligible beneficiaries, bringing the total share of the beneficiary population to 30% of the state s rural households. However, the impact of these achievements on poverty has been constrained by three factors. First, it appears that in many cases these interventions were not well-targeted to the poorest; for example, only 5% of the SC population was assigned government land. Second, despite a 1977 state law prohibiting transfer of assigned land and mandating resumption of illegally transferred land, beneficiaries have in some cases sold land -mostly on plain paper, i.e. under informal arrangements without paying stamp duty- due to family exigencies, without the land having been recovered. According to one estimate, of the about 10 lakh acres that were distributed to SCs until 2000, only about half are still in their possession. Finally, many of the beneficiaries counted for reporting purposes may not actually have received secure access to or control of the assigned land. Reasons for such gaps include (i) assignment of land is only on paper without beneficiaries having received physical possession; (ii) although poor beneficiaries possess the land, they lack the relevant documentation; (iii) beneficiaries may have been evicted from the land or alienated it, often in contravention of the law; (iv) where large blocks were assigned to poor households, survey and subdivision work has not been completed, implying that beneficiaries do not own land under an individual arrangement. As a consequence, more than forty years after passage of some of the relevant pieces of land reform legislation, implementation has in many areas come to a halt and whatever impact such legislation had is recognized to have been insufficient to alter the inequitable pattern of land ownership, let alone change the balance of power, in rural AP. However, the shortcomings of past land reform implementation also present opportunities for future action. The nature of these will differ dependent on the type of land under concern. To explore these in more detail, we distinguish land held or controlled by the government that has been subject to a land reform or distribution program; other government land; and land held by private owners. In each case, we highlight what needs to be done and review the quantitative importance of this type of land in the context of improving asset ownership by the poor. 2.1 Land Reform Lands The land in this category is or has been owned or controlled by the Government and subject to a program with the objective of distributing it to a targeted group of poor households. Three main categories include ceiling surplus land; Bhoodan land; inam land, and previously distributed wasteland. Ceiling surplus land: While the State has distributed 582,319 acres of above-ceiling surplus to 540,344 beneficiary households, 172,249 acres remain under litigation and thus without the beneficiary being able to take possession. The consequences of litigation are particularly far-reaching in cases where the beneficiary have already taken occupation of the land and improved and developed it for years when a court case questions the legitimacy of their possession or forces them to abandon land and associated investments. Also, a large group, numbering potentially hundreds of thousands of qualified beneficiaries, is not in possession of government-assigned ceiling surplus land because the state did not yet implement ceiling laws fully, exercise its right to appropriate that land, or make that land available for distribution. Bhoodan Lands: The Bhoodan (donation of land) movement was started by Acharya Vinoba Bhave in the Nalgonda district of Andhra Pradesh and resulted in donations of privately held land to the poor. Within 2 Government of India, Ministry of Rural Development, ANNUAL REPORT, 2002-2003. Figures on distribution of wasteland do not include information on the number of beneficiary households. 2
Andhra Pradesh, a total of 42,199 beneficiaries have received land through this movement. Of these, 12,832 are members of Scheduled Tribes, and 4,538 are Backward Castes and others. Inam land: Hindu religious institutions historically held land under some form of inam tenure where the precise nature and scope of tenure granted varied with the circumstances of the gift or grant. The Inam Abolition Act, 1952 abolished inam tenure, and vested inam land in the State. Under the Act, individuals who cultivated inam land could apply to the RDO to receive title to the land they cultivate. However, the State does not need to take proactive measures to grant tenure to such lands, something that could result in settlement of thousands of acres of such lands. Previously distribted Government Land: Under relevant legislation and regulations, the State periodically assigns land to the landless poor. Government wasteland 3 and poromboke land 4 have in the past provided significant sources of land for assignment. With 42.5 lakh ac, Andhra Pradesh assigned more land than any other Indian state. However, the problems mentioned above apply to this type of land as well and an unknown share of the land lacks resources for development. 2.2 Other Government Land Wasteland: The wasteland assigned under land reform programmes constitutes only a small share of what is suitable for distribution. With a total of approximately 19 million acres in the state, the vast majority of which government-held, even distribution of a small share of the total could bring substantial benefits to the poor. 5 Endowment and waqf land. Endowment lands are those lands that individuals have given to public religious institutions, such as Hindu temples and monasteries. In Andhra Pradesh, there are 376,346 acres of endowment land. Until recently the Endowment Department had not sold endowment lands, 6 and instead entered into leases with cultivators for nominal rates. Given the hundreds of thousands of acres of endowment land in the State, and the present insecure status of so much of the land occupied by the poor, it would be worth considering how the rules and practices governing the use of endowment land might be reconsidered to benefit poor households. Public sector unit land. Many public sector companies and corporations control large parcels of land that may be vacant for significant periods of time. Throughout the state, large tracts of land acquired for projects lie vacant. In some cases, while title to the land passed at the time of acquisition, the previous owners may continue to cultivate the land. Canal bunds: Canal bunds often comprise of highly fertile lands that can be put to use by the rural poor without jeopardizing their primary function. Canal bunds are public lands, taken over by the irrigation department through the revenue department. A Government Order issued in 1983 permits planting of trees on the canal bunds in the state and the poor secure access to such lands under arrangements of usufruct provides a considerable opportunity for them to improve their livelihood. 2.3 Private lands Tribal Land: Tribal land is among the most insecure in the country, and scheduled tribes are an especially vulnerable group. Historically, the lands occupied by tribals have been seized for public projects, encroached on by large landowners, reserved for forests, and been alienated by tribals to pay for debts. While the Government enacted special legislation to protect tribal interests, tribals continue to face a multitude of problems in securing land rights. High levels of tenure insecurity on tribal lands are often due to disputes about whether or not the land is under the purview of the forest department and thus can be 3 Government wasteland is land held by the Government that is degraded and can be brought under vegetative cover with reasonable efforts and land that is underutilized and deteriorating. ANNUAL REPORT at 104. 4 Poromboke land is land that is set apart for public or communal purposes or incapable of cultivation. 5 This figure does not include approximately nine million acres of forest wasteland. See Wastelands Development Division, Department of Land Resources, at http://dolr.nic.in/wasteland, and calculations in GOI, Developing India s Wastelands (1984-1989). 6 The Andhra Pradesh Charitable and Hindu Religious Institutions and Endowments Act, 1987, restricts sales of endowment land unless sanctioned by the government. Government approval requires specific findings that the transfer is necessary and beneficial to the institution, consistent with the institution s objectives, and the consideration paid is reasonable. Government passed a GO last year for auction of endowment lands, but the auctions have created law and order problems. In several cases involving thousands of acres of land that the poor have occupied for decades, civil society organizations protested the auctions. As a result of these protests, auctions of endowment land have slowed. 3
cultivated by private land owners. A second issue relates to alienation of tribal lands. The applicable land transfer regulation prohibits the transfer of land held by a tribal to a non-tribal and transfers among nontribals in Scheduled Areas. Despite prohibitions, tens of thousands of acres of tribal land passed into the hands of non-tribals, and the non-tribal population holds as much as 48 percent of lands in tribal areas. Tribal poor are often ignorant of the laws and regulations aiming to provide such protections or lack resources to obtain proper legal representation. Moreover, official representatives in the land resolution forums lack familiarity with the applicable laws and may thus not be able to represent tribal interests most effectively. Forest Land: The India Forest Act provides for several different stages of notification for reserving a particular block (or compartment) of land as forestland. At each stage of notification, proper and timely objections can prevent such land from being classified as reserved forestland. If an objection is raised at this preliminary stage of notification stating that the land is already occupied (encroached) by tribals, the forest department cannot proceed. However, these notifications are not well known, implying that often objections are not raised within the appropriate timeframe, creating a danger that tribal rights will be severely limited or extinguished if the land is reserved as forestland. Lands bought through Sada Bai Nama (plain paper) transactions: In some districts there are specific cases where, 30-40 years ago, the poor purchased land from the landowners using plain paper documents (sada bai nama) rather than stamp paper as required by law to formalize and register the transaction. Since the time of their purchases, they have been in physical possession of these lands and in almost all cases cultivated the lands. However, because the transactions took place on plain paper, they are not registered and large benefits can often be realized from doing so. A recent survey conducted by the RDOs in 6 subdivisions of Telangana indicate that the average extent of land under sada bai nama transactions in each district is between 30,000 to 100,000 acres.one subdivision in Nalgonda district alone reports 90,000 acres under plain paper transactions. In all 6 subdivisions, 75-80% of these lands belong to the poor. One reason is that current registration fees (11% of land values) are too high and foster illicit dealings and corruption. In the absence of registration, large extents of lands will not be regularized, and the poor will not have the full benefits of land ownership. A policy decision to reduce these fees, or, as a transitory measure, waive some of these fees for poor households, could encourage poor households with unregistered purchases to register the transactions. 3. How IKP expanded opportunities for land access by the poor 3.1 Administrative setup The IKP (formerly Velugu) project has its origins in the South Asian Poverty Alleviation Project (SAPAP), which was initiated in 1995 in four districts of AP. The Project has a specific focus on the poor women and, building on the state s strong self-help group movement, aims to empower them through institution building and enhanced livelihood opportunities. The Government of AP, through the Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP), now implements the IKP in 846 of the state s 1100 mandals. Its land component focuses on purchase and non-purchase activities to assist the poor in achieving tenure security and physical possession of land. The latter include assisting poor households in taking physical possession of government assigned land and identifying various types of government controlled land that may be available for assignment to poor households while the former include facilitating regularization of land that is not legally held by eligible poor beneficiaries. IKP s activities include actions to provide the poor access to land previously or currently owned or controlled by the Government and to strengthen or formalize legal rights to land that is possessed by poor households often under insecure tenure arrangements. Based on previous work, in 2003, the Project entered into a partnership with the Revenue Department and the Department of Survey, Settlement, and Land Records. The framework for most of the project s non-purchase activities is provided by a Government Order (GO) that emphasizes the objective of convergence between the line department and the IKP Project in three areas, namely (i) ensuring secure possession of land by poor people with legal title but not possession; (ii) providing the poor with legal rights to land in their possession and regularizing rights in the revenue records; and (iii) ensuring that the poor have the ability to receive physical possession and legal and 4
alienable ownership of lands to which they are entitled by law. The GO envisages formation of committees at the state level, district level, and sub-district levels to address land issues at all levels. The committees include officials from the Revenue Department and the project, as well as representatives of NGOs working on land issues. Building on this order, the project developed a systematic approach to determine nature and scope of the activities to be undertaken in any location, beginning with locally identifying opportunities (many of which have been described in broad terms above), classifying those opportunities by cross-checking with official records, determining the most appropriate approach to address them, and translate them into a concrete course of action. Identification of needs and opportunities is done through a combination of work with community-based organizations active in the area, survey and inventory of government land, and crosschecking with official records. Relationships with CBOs have provided the best source of information regarding opportunities to provide access or secure rights to poor households. The project aims to act as a catalyst, drawing in staff from the revenue department and representatives from beneficiary organizations to follow through. It has hired District-level Assistant Project Directors (APDs) who are familiar with revenue matters to maintain links with the line department as well as organizations familiar with and trusted by local people. 3.2 The non-purchase component: Challenges and accomplishments IKP s non-purchase component aims to address the land access and tenure security issues that surface through the above identification process, thereby capitalizing on the opportunities identified earlier. The key elements of this process are described below. Awareness raising: IKP invests heavily in education and training, e.g. by conducting district-level workshops to orient and by sensitizing Revenue Department officials about the GO and their role in implementing it. It provides ongoing orientation and training of its own land component staff and involves third parties, such as activists for the rural poor. Working with local communities, IKP facilitated the training of local youth as barefoot surveyors through the Department of Survey, Settlement, and Land Records. These trainees are then expected to work with community-based organizations and others to identify land issues of the poor, to help resolve them, and to conduct surveys under the supervision and guidance of an experienced revenue staff. IKP also places staff trained in paralegal matters within the local communities to provide legal assistance and capacity building. Data management and access. To ensure greater availability of accurate information, the project supports the collection, computerization, and translation into local language of key land data in 268 mandals with the goal of making these data accessible to communities. In most cases, Revenue Department officials are willing to take the necessary action to provide poor households with access and/or secure legal rights to land, but lack the needed human, monetary, or technical resources to do so. In such cases, IKP has often provided resources such as retired surveyors or vehicles to complete essential tasks. By hiring additional staff, the project facilitated digitalization of tippans (field map books) of government lands. Velugu has also developed strategic alliances with NGOs and other organizations working on land issues which allow the program to benefit from comparative and external expertise, bringing in a range of perspectives for crosschecking. A copy of the tippans is being made available to the federation of self-help groups at the mandal level. Sensitization workshops have been conducted for Revenue staff to enable them to appreciate and process the land needs of the poor. An MoU is entered with the Andhra Pradesh Academy of Rural Development (APARD) in partnership with the Chief Commissioner Land Administration to train revenue officials, community based organizations and civil society organizations in land matters. Also, to address the shortage of surveyors, IKP has, with support from the Department of Survey, trained 200 poor rural youth as barefoot surveyors and is planning to increase the number of trainees and to support an additional apprenticeship that would enable these people to become fully licensed surveyors. Administrative prompting, support, and oversight: IKP works through individuals with revenue experience, in particular the district-level Land APDs, who are current or former Revenue Department officials. These individuals can capitalize on their knowledge of land law, their experience working in land related areas for many years, and their access to land records, to identify issues through project staff and exert pressure on 5
local revenue officials (mostly mandal revenue officers or MROs) to address these issues. By putting a spotlight on local Revenue officers, applying peer pressure, and at times providing additional resources through the project, this allow to considerable enhance the performance of regular revenue officers. The most notable example of support provided to the Revenue Department is the support provided in January 2003 to the massive, state-wide physical inventory of existing and assigned government land which IKP has helped facilitate in 280 mandals. Legal aid: Legal aid services undertaken thus far consist of a number of components. First, to assist the poor to pursue pending cases in revenue or civil courts, the project identified, in three districts, lawyers and at the state level who have agreed to represent the poor in land cases. Second, a memorandum of understanding has been entered with the National Academy for Legal Studies and Research (NALSAR) and with law colleges in a number of districts that allows law students to assist in the identification, investigation, negotiation, and resolution of land disputes in Revenue courts of a number of districts. 7 Initial results have been encouraging as, with the support of the district administration, students received access to the files, conducted field interviews, and assisted in resolving dozens of cases. Third, partly as a follow-up to the above, a paralegal course on land law issues, organized jointly between the project and NALSAR, for the final year students who are involved in formal and informal resolution of land issues has been organized. Finally, a training program for land activists at the local level was established and a first batch consisting of 41 rural poor youth have been trained as paralegals who can now assist VOs and their SHG members in identifying and addressing land-related issues. Tribal land issues: In view of the particular vulnerability of tribals, a number of activities targeted at this group have been initiated. First, local tribal youth and women have been trained in land matters and, with appropriate technical support from local law college students, were engaged to complete a physical inventory of tribal lands that will identify problem in 5 districts. These problems include both lack of regularization and alienation of tribal lands, forest boundary issues, and scrutiny of cases under land transfer regulations that have not been enforced or where judgments may have mistakenly been made against the tribals. In these cases, either appeals are filed by engaging competent lawyers or efforts to ensure implementation of court orders at the village and block levels. Also, a listing of cases pertaining to the land issues of tribals in the High Court of Andhra Pradesh has been completed and follow-up activities to assist in the disposal of these cases are underway. Although they are by no means sufficient to cope with existing demand, the activities under the project have had a significant impact. In the 18 months since their initiation, non-purchase activities spearheaded by the land component have put approximately 1.2 lakh acres in the hands of the poor and, in addition, formed a basis for the much more ambitious program for land distribution initiated by the government. Overall, the renewed emphasis on land has helped to, for the first time, approach land rights and land access issues from a development but explicitly pro-poor perspective. 3.3 Land Purchase Component In every district of AP, land is available for purchase that poor households could buy if they had access to financing. To take advantage of this opportunity, the project has designed a land purchase component that aims to assist the landless poor in purchasing and developing small parcels of land. 8 To avoid some of the shortcomings experienced in other schemes, key elements of the strategy include the following: In contrast to schemes where bureaucrats initiate and drive the process, the main thrust is to have land purchase activity initiated by beneficiaries, with assistance from VOs and MSs. To accommodate a larger number of beneficiaries and not to skew project choices toward purchasing land, the project adopted a limit of Rs 30,000 per household. Households can use up to this amount to purchase either field plots or house- 7 These include the districts of West Godavari,Warangal, Karimnagar and Ranga Reddy Cuddapah and the Intensive Tribal Development Areas (ITDAs) of Ramachandrapuram, Bhadrachalam and Rampachodavaram. 8 The Scheduled Caste Development Corporation has for several years implemented a land purchase scheme in Andhra Pradesh. The scheme has achieved some success, but has also faced significant problems, including allowing the landowners seeking to sell land to initiate and control the process, failing to anticipate the need for improvements and technical assistance and to include those costs in budgeting, identifying beneficiaries after the land is purchased, permitting beneficiaries to take on unmanageable debts and establishing often unreasonable repayment schemes. Velugu s land purchase activities are designed to avoid these problems. 6
and-garden plots and obtain resources for developing these plots. 9 Contrary to schemes that aim to identify beneficiaries only after land purchase has been completed, the IKP land purchase component requires elaboration of a business plan prior to land purchase, to determine the economic viability of the land acquisition but also to compare it to alternative options of using scarce resources. The project includes technical assistance and requires beneficiaries to consider what improvements (such as irrigation) might be necessary and to include these costs in their business plan. Such budgeting for necessary improvements avoids the problems that have often arisen in schemes that allow land purchases without factoring in the costs of making the land productive from the beginning. As technical assistance is integrated into the purchase option, beneficiaries do not need to look to other government schemes and resources for the necessary technical assistance, thus avoiding unnecessary delays. In fact, beneficiaries who meet certain eligibility requirements identify the land, negotiate a price, and develop a business plan for farming the land. IKP s land purchase option includes a grant component and reasonable repayment terms so beneficiaries are not saddled with an unmanageable debt and unrealistic needs for repayment. The repayment plan is included in a pre-purchase business plan to enable beneficiaries to evaluate the extent of their obligation and understand how the repayment obligation will affect the overall economics of the land purchase option. Steps in the project cycle for land purchases are as follows: Before land purchases can occur in a given mandal, an inventory is needed that includes information on four topics, namely (a) local government institutions, organizations, and specialists that can provide support to the land purchase and development process; (b) land market information including land sale and lease market activity, land prices, and amount and types of land available for sale; (c) profile of potential beneficiaries; and (d) model farm budgets and investment plans. This is followed by training and orientation of community coordinators and specialists. District-level Land APDs conduct trainings or orientation workshops for the local-level Community Coordinators (Project staff who work directly with individual project beneficiaries), other concerned Project staff, and identified supporting specialists or institutions (as necessary). These in turn inform their self-help groups of the land purchase option and provide advice as to comparing it with other livelihood options that may be financed through the project. Once the above activities have been undertaken, community coordinators identify SHGs who indicated availability of land for possible purchase and inform the Land APD. Project staff will ensure that the purchasing group, each individual group member, and the land to be purchased, meet the necessary eligibility requirements. Members must be identified as poor through a participatory appraisal process, must own less than 0.5 acres of land, and must be between 18 and 55 years of age. The purchasing group, with the support of project staff must also obtain various documents that certify the seller holds good title to the land. The purchasing group, with support from project staff, then prepares a preliminary and simple farm business plan that includes strategy and costs for improving land productivity, plan for land use and projected net production values, calculation of cash flows, computations of rates of returns for investments, and a description of risks and risk management. The purchasing group members are expected to negotiate directly with the landowner in the presence (and with assistance from(a local project staff member and a village elder, gram panchayat member or MRO. The price is subject to the maximum set by a mandal appraisal committee. Once these steps are successfully completed, the group interested in the purchase, with assistance of project staff and based upon the preliminary farm business plan, will prepare and submit a proposal to the project for the funds necessary to purchase and develop the land. If the proposal is sanctioned, the Land APD prepares the necessary MOUs and the Project issues a demand draft for the sale price. The seller and the purchasing group will conduct and register the land purchase transaction following the normal process of such transactions in Andhra Pradesh. 9 The house-and-garden plot option is based on research suggesting that even plots of 0.10 acre can provide meaningful supplemental income, nutrition, and other benefits to otherwise landless households. The approach for house-and-garden plots would be to purchase 3 or more acres of land within 1 km of a village habitation area and sub-divide the land into 8-10 house-and-garden plots per acre with some water and other facilities. 7
3.4 Sub-divisional land action plans and the land distribution program Spurred by the numerous cases of successful ensuring of land access to the poor convergence of the IKP and the Revenue Department, a more ambitious attempt was recently made to put these efforts on a sustainable platform by developing a clear action plan for addressing the land issues of the poor in a time bound manner at the local level. This is undertaken by formulating a Sub Division Land Action Plan (SDLAP), initially in one revenue sub division in each district. The different stages in this process are as follows. First, a comprehensive mapping of land issues to cover the various types of land issues of the poor in the subdivision is undertaken, based on information from a number of sources, in particular (i) the revenue records; (ii) meetings with revenue staff at various levels; (iii) the Mandal Level Convergence Committee established under G.O.Ms.1148, that comprises officials, representatives of NGOs, and the Mandal Samakhyas (MSs) and; (iv) representatives of political parties. Once all land issues are mapped, strategies for resolving these in a comprehensive way are formulated by forming special teams of Revenue and Survey machinery assisted by the Mandal and village level functionaries of IKP and involving the representatives of the CBOs. This results in a time bound action plan with financial and manpower planning to proceed from the most pressing to less immediate issues. For example in Krishna District the issue of land ceiling emerged as top priority. In Cuddapah district resolution of legal issues pertaining to land cases was top priority and in 2 other districts, forest-revenue border issues were key. The ability of IKP to act as a catalyst and provide resources has been critical in seeing these effors through. For example, when after the first few months the enthusiasm of the Department faded, the Indira Kranthi Patham in Visakhapatnam took the lead by engaging 23 contract surveyors and the physical inventory of the Government lands were completed by joint teams of IKP and the revenue officials in 6 months from March 2004 to August 2004. During the physical inventory a total of 11,500 acres involving poor 8,603 families was identified as available for assignment. Of this 7,430 acres was under cultivation by 5,102 poor farmers (Sivai zamadars) for several years the farmers however did not have pattas for the land. An additional 3,745 acres was identified as vacant government land fit for cultivation. From September 2004 to May 2005, IKP helped to ensure that the survey and subdivision work for the individual pockets of lands of poor farmers and the vacant lands of the 11,500 acres was completed. Surveys were done by the contract surveyors followed by scrutiny and approval by the departmental surveyors. This was followed by holding of gram sabhas by the revenue officials attended by he villagers and IKP field functionaries where the poverty status of occupants on land to be regularized was confirmed, beneficiaries for vacant land were selected, and pattas were issued. Pattas were given exclusively for women for whom survey subdivision sketches of the individual plots and pattadar passbooks were subsequently prepared. Also, in a number of long-standing disputes between forest and revenue department which had remained unresolved due to lack of knowledge and administrative resources, IKP has performed a catalytic function in raising issues and supporting their resolution in a way that benefits the poor. With the change in government in Oct. 2004, the issue of land reforms that had been rather dormant for over a decade, suddenly acquired renewed importance. This is due to several factors. First, the left parties who have been long champions of the land reforms agenda and were partners with the ruling party in the elections mounted an intense campaign on the land issues of the poor culminating in over 100 MLAs (across all parties) signing a memorandum on the floor of the house demanding assurance from the state government, a time bound resolution of the issues of the poor. Second, in a parallel development, the Naxalites who were brought to the table for peace talks also flagged distribution of lands to the poor as a major issue to be resolved. The ensuing debates on land reforms across the state led to two major developments, namely the announcement of a massive land distribution program and the constitution of a Land committee including two senior ministers and Secretaries to the Government to assess the impact of land reforms and make recommendations for effective implementation. Regarding the land distribution program, tables 1 and 2 illustrate the massive scale of this program which, in two rounds that were formally concluded in January and August of 2005, distributed a total of 3,25 lakh acres to 2.4 lakh beneficiary households. Thanks largely to the groundwork on the land inventory done by 8
IKP as described earlier, it was easy to identify land that was suitable for distribution and the process could be carried out in a highly transparent and efficient manner. Efforts are currently underway for another round of land distribution. It is often pointed out that fresh assignments are few and that the same land is recycled. Although often true, redistribution of land is really completing the task left unfinished for many years. Moreover, during the second round of distribution, the only one for which disaggregated data were available, more than one quarter was land that had not been occupied by the beneficiaries before, implying that the amount of new land transfer was quite substantial. Also, and in contrast to earlier efforts that had often left out the poorest groups, table 2 illustrates that more than half of all lands (and more than two thirds in certain districts such as East Godavari, Visakhapatnam, and Khammam) went to SCs or STs. Further study of the impact of these transfers at the household level, possibly in comparison to some of the other land-related activities undertaken by the program, would be highly desirable to identify areas for improvement and assess the scope for expansion and possible replication of this initiative in other contexts. Although the final report of the land commission has not been issued or formally approved yet, it appears that recommendations emerging from its studies and dialogues with political parties, civil society and the public at large are fully consistent with the experiences by IKP, focusing on (i) effective implementation of the Acts in place to provide land access to the poor; (ii) greater attention to tribal land issues; (iii) the critical nature of legal assistance; and (iv) the importance of action at the local level which is fully consistent with the approach taken by the project, as for example, indicated in sub-divisional land action plans. The challenge for the state will be to build on the advances made by IKP to develop mechanisms for expanding coverage and at the same time integrate the new approaches into existing structures. 4. Next steps To ensure that the innovations pioneered by IKP will have a broader impact and are sustainable in the long run, key challenges to be addressed are (i) the scaling up of promising initiatives with a proven track record; (ii) integration of these into the existing institutional context; and (iii) the development of market mechanisms to not only complement government intervention but also ensure its long-term sustainability. We discuss each of these elements in turn. Scaling up of successful initiatives: There is little doubt that, in the cases described above, IKP s involvement is likely to have yielded positive results which, due to IKP s very participatory approach and high level of civil society participation, were often achieved at low cost. More detailed study of each of the main lines of intervention to document costs and benefits will be needed to identify components that are likely to have the biggest impact on the poor, make the case for scaling them up, and to set realistic goals for the speed at which they can be expanded and the potential impacts that might be expected. A careful assessment of existing demand for specific types of intervention and the longer-term requirements will be critical to think about institutional arrangements, in particular the link to the revenue department and the federated structure of SHGs at the district level, to deal with the needs in a way that is both cost-effective and sustainable. Development of land lease markets: Although IKP s interventions demonstrate that better implementation of existing land reform legislation can enhance land access by the poor, the amounts that can be made available through this channel, and the productive potential of the land involved, are necessarily finite and will decrease over time. By comparison, all over the world, the supply of land to the lease market, and the scope for poor but productive households to access land and achieve higher levels of productivity tends to increase with economic growth as an increasing number of rural households take on jobs in the non-agricultural economy. In AP, as in many other Indian states, legislation severely restricts the potential for lease markets to develop and, as a result confines land rental markets to informality, with very negative consequences for the level of protection enjoyed by cultivators, the investments they will undertake, and their ability to raise credit and benefit from other government policies. In fact, studies show that land leasing in AP is on the increase but that virtually all of it remains informal, resulting in stagnation of agricultural productivity and leaving tenants, who are neither protected nor recognized in the eyes of law, decidedly worse off. All of this implies that the tenancy Act may have outlived its usefulness and that its modification or removal is likely to have a very positive impact on the ability of the poor to access land. 9
Institutional development: While the progress achieved as a result of the close collaboration between IKP and the revenue department in AP highlights the potential for making significant progress, it also illustrates the need for more far-reaching and structural reforms as a precondition for more sustainable progress. Two areas are of main relevance. First, the quality of service delivery by the revenue department has long suffered from a proliferation of responsibilities, most of them not at all related to land administration, coupled with a relative neglect in terms of staffing, and reliance on antiquated survey technology. Second, fragmentation of responsibility for the different aspects of land administration (survey and settlement, records, and registration) leads to a huge increase in the costs of addressing land issues in a sustainable way and a more streamlined business model, with a clear role for the private sector (including the barefoot surveyors trained by the project) would be desirable. The fact that the government of AP is not only aware of these issues but also has developed concrete plans to reverse the long-term neglect of land administration by establishing an integrated land administration agency that relies on modern technology and processes could provide an opportunity to increase tenure security for cultivators, transparency of land records, and thus ensure that the innovations introduced by IKP for the poor can be sustained in the long term. Careful monitoring of progress made in this direction, and the contributions by IKP towards achieving it will hold important lessons not only for AP but also for other Indian states many of whom face very similar challenges. 10
Table 1: Amount of land redistributed in 2005 by district Total area Government Ceiling Other Government New Acres Percentage share 1 Srikakulam 19,338 18,290 0 1,049 94.58 5.72 Vizianagaram 9,798 8,963 111 724 91.48 3.20 Visakhapatnam 36,771 28,721 0 8,050 78.11 0.00 East Godavari 7,860 7,654 170 36 97.38 0.00 West Godavari 10,962 8,573 185 2,204 78.21 68.28 Krishna 8,126 4,564 272 3,290 56.16 14.74 Guntur 6,098 3,416 863 1,820 56.01 19.11 Prakasam 20,400 20,073 327 0 98.40 57.19 Nellore 28,728 19,653 8,062 1,013 68.41 70.08 Chittoor 9,408 9,088 41 279 96.60 39.42 Cuddapah 14,978 14,978 0 0 100.00 81.61 Ananthapur 15,828 13,055 112 2,661 82.48 23.88 Kurnool 12,420 11,922 498 0 95.99 27.03 Mahabubnagar 10,835 9,662 354 819 89.17 25.38 Rangareddy 5,338 4,867 471 0 91.17 0.00 Medak 32,286 26,587 393 5,305 82.35 40.99 Nizamabad 9,431 9,431 0 0 100.00 25.84 Adilabad 25,850 24,725 1,125 0 95.65 21.13 Karimnagar 8,997 8,965 32 0 99.65 11.10 Warangal 6,631 5,244 1,376 11 79.08 3.26 Khammam 9,224 9,224 0 0 100.00 0.98 Nalgonda 16,334 10,754 26 5,554 65.84 13.96 Total 325,641 278,407 14,418 32,815 85.50 27.35 1 As figures for the first round of land distribution are not available the share of newly assigned lands refers only to the second round. 11
Table 2: No. of beneficiaries from land redistribution in 2005, by district Total SC ST BC Minority Other Percentage shares Srikakulam 19258 13.14 42.17 30.46 0.00 14.23 Vizianagaram 9444 27.85 31.06 38.71 0.00 2.38 Visakhapatnam 18860 7.84 62.67 22.15 0.00 7.34 East Godavari 4117 16.54 67.33 10.01 0.00 6.12 West Godavari 10629 36.57 5.73 36.16 0.00 21.54 Krishna 7762 43.57 5.53 34.10 1.70 15.10 Guntur 5166 35.95 20.02 27.41 1.20 15.43 Prakasam 13548 45.26 5.90 27.67 1.33 19.84 Nellore 23235 38.63 15.11 31.50 3.29 11.47 Chittoor 7940 42.04 8.78 29.74 2.78 16.66 Cuddapah 8868 39.06 7.25 25.12 2.20 26.36 Ananthapur 6727 27.14 10.41 43.56 1.03 17.87 Kurnool 6858 34.73 7.32 47.45 3.22 7.32 Mahabubnagar 8010 36.57 11.97 45.37 0.45 5.64 Rangareddy 3254 31.62 19.33 40.63 1.17 7.25 Medak 29825 34.86 8.06 47.80 4.07 5.21 Nizamabad 7535 27.74 21.57 43.64 2.30 4.76 Adilabad 10497 21.15 48.62 26.52 0.66 3.05 Karimnagar 11469 49.72 7.54 38.92 0.31 3.51 Warangal 6531 30.79 28.62 37.74 0.29 2.56 Khammam 6580 23.02 50.88 17.46 1.96 6.67 Nalgonda 15120 31.92 23.53 37.69 0.71 5.48 Total 241233 31.21 22.77 34.37 1.52 10.09 12