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From Landless to land owners: opening up opportunities

Sibabrata Choudhury & Sanjoy Patnaik

VII International Conference on

Public Policy & Management, IIM Bangalore

18th August 2012

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Co-relation between landlessness and poverty “Secure access to land and other natural resources is a direct factor in the alleviation of hunger and rural poverty. Rural landlessness is often the best predictor of poverty and hunger: the poorest are usually landless or land-poor. Inadequate rights of access to land and other natural resources, and insecure tenure of those rights, often result in extreme poverty and hunger.”

(http://www.fao.org/nr/tenure/lt-home/en/)

“Millions of poor rural people depend on farming for their livelihoods, but they control very little land…redistributing land to small scale farmers can do much to reduce their poverty…land security can mean food security”

(http://www.ifad.org/media/pack/land.htm)

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Secure land rights fundamental for development

“Rural poverty in India has its roots in the absence of access to land. Secure access rights to land are also an imperative for food security.”

- Land Rights and ownership in Orissa, UNDP, 2008

“Land tenure security – for both women and men – is just one step on the road to reducing rural poverty. Strengthening women’s land rights not only contributes to gender equality, it also improves food security and reduces poverty for the whole family.”

- Land Tenure Security and poverty reduction, IFAD, 2012

Transition from landless to land owners…

• Secured rights over land triggers number of benefits

– Increased access to government services

– Access to credit

– Home-based food production

– Improved family nutrition

– Definite economic and social benefits

Social and political recognition

Household food security and economic

gains

Homestead development

Government extension services

Social security

Land allocation

Background and Context

• Post independence, Government of Odisha introduced a number of progressive land reforms legislations that

– Stop tribal land transfer through LT regulation 2, 1956

– influenced land ceiling and created windows of surplus land distribution to the landless (1974)

– Sharecroppers’ rights (1974)

– Land to the landless through regularizing encroachment of govt land (1972)

Government Response…enumeration and re-enumeration

• Enumeration of landless in 2004-05: 2.49 lakh homesteadless and 4.45 lakh landless households

• Vasundhara scheme launched in 2005-06 to provide homestead land upto 4 cents (now 10) to homesteadless families - 2.75 lakh families allotted homestead land between 2005-06 and 2010-11

• Land restoring campaign was launched in 2007 in the form of Mo Jami Mo Diha

• Circular for re-enumeration in 2011, 2.36 lakh families enlisted as homesteadless (Revenue Deptt)

Background and Context

• Implementation bottlenecks in the form of lack of capacity restricted landless families getting the fruits of progressive legislations; – Land allotted but patta

not issued

– Allotted land cultivated by previous owner

– Land not suitable for cultivation

Land allocation using CRPs in Odisha

Status assessment

Results shared with Govt.

CRP Model piloted in 3

districts

Pilot results

and Govt. scale-up

Why land to the landless couldn’t succeed

1. Political and administrative “intent”

– Land allocation ceased to be a priority area for revenue staff

2. Fairly ineffective monitoring system

3. Shortage of field level revenue staffs;

– No/very limited household survey to identify homesteadless/landless families

– no field verification and use of old records

– Incorrect figures as regards actual number of homesteadless/landless families

4. Capacity gaps – inaccurate methods

Local solution: Local capacity model for allocating land to the landless

• Community Resource Person

– local literate youth

– selected jointly by the community and the local revenue offical

– trained to provide additional capacity for identification of homesteadless / landless households

Process flowchart of land allocation through CRPs

CRP selection Phase I training

Data Collection

Phase II training

Identification of landless

Field Verification & Camp Court

Patta

Household list, land database from RoR, FRA allotees, village

validation

Triangulation – matching

household list with the

landholding

Key features of land allocation using CRPs

• CRP creates the base information on exact number of homesteadless (in about 2 months)

• CRP does not tamper with the existing revenue process

• With a role in each step, the CRP works closely with the revenue official, beneficiary and the community, resulting in greater transparency in the process

• While the CRPs move the process, the field level revenue official play a key role in CRP selection, training and day-to-day functioning

Key features of land allocation using CRPs

• CRP helps in the non-technical aspects of the land allocation process

• At each level of data collection validation is done with the community

• Community involvement in the process in identification and land allotment results in greater transparency and collective decision

• Identification of land (free from encroachment) that can be settled in favour of the landless

• Land database created for the village with updated information from RoR and FRA list

Scaling the local capacity model

• The CRP model was scaled with a Government programme - OTELP; – The programme being implemented in the tribal areas with

complicated land situations

– Though land was a priority for the project, not much had been done on the issue,

– The programme had the resources to hire CRPs and had the necessary human resource to facilitate/oversee the CRPs

– Easier to convince why the programme should invest on land allocation using a model that has been piloted

• Pilot had identified some land settlement challenges that a Govt. programme could resolve

Results so far…collaboration with OTELP

• OTELP and RDI collaborated to ensure land to the landless using CRPs in 1042 villages, 30 blocks, 7 districts

– 550 CRPs are engaged in 1042 villages who have identified over 30,000 landless families

– Identification of landlessness is over in 978 villages (93%)

– Field verification over in 485 villages (46%)

– Patta distribution completed for 139 villages

• Titles to 8,844 households, including 4,479 for cropland (includes both revenue and forest land patta)

Scaling opportunities

• Government of Odisha has decided to scale the model to 118 tribal sub-plan (TSP) blocks with the engagement of CRPs/Bhumi Sanjojaks – To cover 18,000 villages in next 5 years in three overlapping

phases during the 12th Five Year Plan

– The programme is expected to touch 1.2 million households - about quarter of a million landless are expected to get land titles

– Post allocation, the CRPs will work with block administration for homestead development/livelihoods convergence

• Land allocation programme in collaboration with National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM)

Key features of the programme

• Local youth help the revenue officials in identification of the landless

• Engagement with District Administration right from the planning phase to programme implementation

• Advocacy engagements

– Size of plot

– Settlement procedures

• Collaborative approach

– OTELP - District Administration – RDI - Field NGOs - Community

Concluding remarks

• Third party – private individual can be effective in land allocation for the poor, an example of Govt. – Non Govt. – Community collaboration

• Transparent method of identification of landless and land allocation process

• Commitment from Government has been crucial in the land allocation programme not only in initial piloting but also in scaling up

• Role of CRP can go much beyond land allocation…for livelihoods convergence and other inclusive programmes

Do we have to address the land rights issue? What it really means for the poor?

“I cannot express the pain and humiliation when asked to vacate the land. All through my life, I searched for an address – a place for my own identity.”

Do we have to address the land rights issue? What it really means for the poor?

“Though we always wanted to have a patta to our land, but did not know how to go about it. Our Sonu (the CRP) helped us in getting it.”

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sibabratac@rdiland.org

sanjoyp@rdiland.org

Thanks for your attention