Telangana People’s Land Manifesto Telangana People’s Land Manifesto is prepared based on the expectations, opinions, and aspirations of Telangana people expressed during the Land Caravan and last six years work of Landesa / Rural Development Institute. Landesa has undertook a “Land Caravan” from 6th February to 14th March 2014 with the teams travelling across Telangana and gathered information from farmers, the landless poor, and revenue officials to find possible solutions for land problems. The teams have travelled about 4000 KMs in all the ten districts of Telangana, met more than 5000 people, and interviewed about 1000 of them. The vast majority of rural households in Telangana suffer from a drastically inadequate relationship with the land on which their well-begin and livelihood depends. They lack any land to cultivate, lack even a homestead, or lack security and legal recognition for the land they do possess and use. 1. Land to the landless rural poor Various studies suggest that about fifty percent of rural households in Telangana are landless. Which means that about 25 lakh rural households (approximately 1 crore people) have no land to cultivate. Majority of them belong to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other marginalized groups. Providing a small piece of land can enable them to come out of poverty. State Government should take immediate steps to distribute all the available lands including government, ceiling surplus, bhoodan and un-utilised acquired lands. Strictly enforce existing laws which can make more land available to the poor. Further, State Government should allot funds to Women Self Help Groups to purchase lands for all the poorest women members in their groups. 2. Homestead to the homeless rural poor It’s estimated that in addition,about 6 lakh rural households in Telangana are both landless and houseless. They could not even take the benefits under rural housing programmes as they do not have land to build their houses. A house of one’s own is a basic human right and a fundamental right guaranteed by the Constitution of India. Government should allot 4 guntas(10 cents) to each poor landless and homeless family to build a shelter and take up supplementary livelihood activities such as backyard poultry, goat-rearing, horticulture and vegetable cultivation. Government of India has already committed funds to states for purchasing homestead land for the poor under Indira AwasYojana (IAY).Additionally, state funds should be allocated as well. Government should provide needed support to build the house and develop the homestead by ensuring convergence between various departments. 3. Patta with secured rights to the landowners and to those who have legitimate claim over land At least a further forty percent of farmers (20 lakh households)have insecure, undocumented or inadequately documented land rights in Telangana. About ten lakh poor people who have purchased small pieces of agricultural land through un-registered/plain paper transactions (SadaBainama) but do not have patta; additional thousands of people who have inherited land do not have patta in their name as mutations have not been taking place regularly; about one lakh inam lands are not yet settled; thousands of poor are cultivating land in forest revenue boundary disputed areas with constant threat of eviction; thousands of people are cultivating land in so called “ Deemed forest” (unsettled forests) areas with unsettled rights; thousands of tribal and other traditional forest dwellers either did not receive title under the Forest Rights Act or there are errors/mistakes/discrepancies in the titles issued to them; and thousands of poor are cultivating government / farrari patta / ghatt number / billa number lands. The State Government should take immediate steps to a. Extend the date for receiving application for regularization of sadabainamas and issue patta. Further, Government should exempt the regularization fee for at least SCs, STs and women. Government should also extend the cut-off date from 2000 to 2010. b. Carryout mutations in land records and issue patta to all who have inherited land c. Settle all the inam lands d. Settle forest revenue boundary disputes and issue patta under revenue laws or title under the Forest Rights Act to the poor who are in cultivation of those lands e. Complete forest settlement processand recognize existing rights of people f. Issue titles to tribals and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers under Forest Rights Act. Rectify errors/mistakes/discrepancies in the titles. g. Issue titles to community forest resourcesunder Forest Rights Act. h. Issue patta to eligible people who are in cultivation of government / farrari patta / ghatt number / billa number lands. 4. Updated and accessible land records Majority of entries in all the land records do not reflect the field reality. Many times, names of the pattadars and cultivators are not entered in revenue records. Further, there are many errors / mistakes / discrepancies in the revenue records. People are facing many hardships due to non-update land records. They are being deprived of many benefits due to them as farmers. The State Government should take immediate steps to update all the land records and make them accessible to allat low or no charge. Further, Government should regularly take up Azmoishi and Zamabandi. 5. Re-survey The major bottleneck in resolving any land problem and the root cause for many land problems is the lack of proper survey and survey records. Law requires that re-survey should be done after every 30 years but the last survey in Telangana was done in 1940’s. Most of the survey records (village maps and tippans) are in brittle condition. The State Government should take urgent steps to re-survey all agricultural lands with the involvement of local people, using up-to-date and cost effective technology. 6. Effective and efficient land administration system Revenue department which deals with land administration has neither the time nor the required capacities for administering land. There is acute shortage of revenue staff at all levels. Thousands of land petitions are pending in various revenue offices. The State Government should recruit sufficient number of revenue staff at all levels, build their capacities and make them accountable on land matters. Appoint one Village Revenue Officers (VRO) to each revenue village and ensure that VRO stays in the village where he or she is appointed. Ensure that required numbers of women are recruited. Provide necessary budgetary support to the revenue department. 7. Legal support to the poor through community-based Paralegals There are at least 100 to 200 land problems in every village. About 12 lakh land problems were brought to the notice of revenue authorities just in the last one year. It is estimated that about 2% of land in rural areas is in court cases and about 40% of land is in other problems. The poor are unable to get their land problems resolved because they lack legal awareness, cannot obtain legal aid services and cannot access adjudicating systems. The State Government should create community-based Paralegal programme for providing facilitation support to the poor in getting their land problems resolved. A Land Rights and Legal Assistance Centre should be established at every Revenue Divisional Headquarter under the aegis of DRDAs to provide the needed assistance to the poor in getting their land problems resolved and also to educate people on land rights. These Centres should consist of Paralegals, Community Surveyors and Lawyers. In each Mandal, 3-5 rural youth/women from the community should be identified, trained in land and legal matters and positioned as paralegals. 3-5 youth/women from the community should be identified, trained in land survey and positioned as Community Surveyors. A Coordinator with a background in law should be appointed in each Centre who will provide both functional and technical support to the Paralegals and Community Surveyors. A panel of lawyers should be constituted in each Centre to fight the land cases pertaining to the poor in both Revenue and Civil Courts. Government of India has already agreed to provide for all the necessary cost through National Rural Livelihood Mission. 8. Providing land to women and protecting their rights In Telangana, more than three fourth of rural women (35 lakhs) are engaged in agricultural work but at most only 4 lakh of these own land. Women are denied equal rights to access, inherit, or own land even though law provides for it. State Government should allot agricultural land and homesteads in the name of women only; inheritance rights of women should be strictly enforced; and revenue machinery should be sensitized to respect and enforce the rights of women 9. Restore, protect and develop lands of the poor with a special focus on SCs, STs and other marginalized groups Significant percentage of land assigned to the landless poor is alienated. Five lakh acres of assigned land is alienated as per Government estimates and as per the estimates of civil society organisations it is about 25 lakh acres. In spite of the stringent Land Transfer Regulations prohibiting transfer of lands tonon-tribal in Scheduled Areas, tens of thousands of acres of land have been illegally passed into the hands of the non tribals. Non-tribal population holds as much as 51 percent of the lands in the scheduled areas and more and more lands are going in to the hands of non-tribal. An assessment of the cases disposed of by the LTR authorities in the agency areas of Telangana shows that more than 50% of the cases have gone in favor of the non-tribals. Out of 45,595 cases booked under LTR (1, 86, 664 acres), land is restored (at least on paper) in only 15, 556 cases (71, 273 acres). The State Government should strictly implement the laws prohibiting land alienations and restore the land to the original owner/beneficiary. Further, Government should take measures to prevent distress sales. Also, take steps to help the development of the lands of the poorwith convergence between various departments. 10 Legal recognition to tenant farmers As per Government estimates, there are about 4 lakh tenant farmers in Telangana. Out of them, about 2 lakh tenant farmers have received Loan Eligibility Cards until now (which are valid only for one year). And, majority of the tenants who have received the Loan Eligibility Cards did not get crop loans. The State Government should ensure that all the tenant farmers gets the Loan Eligibility Cards and receive crop loans and other benefits due to them as farmers.
Posted on: Thu, 27 Mar 2014 15:45:19 +0000
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