Messy land title records to test PM Kisan scheme roll-out

PM Kisan, the Narendra Modi government’s cash-transfer programme for small farmers, hinges on how soon messy land records can be cleaned up in a country with 140 million operational land holdings, the number of land lots owned by total households.

Of these 140 million holdings, 120 million, or 86%, are below two hectares; the owners of these will qualify for an annual cash transfer of ₹6,000 because they are counted as small and marginal farmers.Benefits under PM-Kisan will be handed out on the basis of land ownership, meaning the beneficiary has to have the land in his or her name.

Experts fear inadequate land records can leave out eligible farmers for want of proof of ownership. The cash-transfer scheme will go by ownership on official records as on February 1, 2019.

“There are two issues, one of updating, and secondly, of digitisation (of land records). Both are critically important for any scheme targeted at land holdings,” says economist T Haque, who chaired an expert committee on land leasing set up by the NITI Aayog, the state-run think tank.

For instance, a small farmer who doesn’t have land in his own name but in the name of his father who has died, or owns a property which has been informally divided, without such allocation reflecting in revenue records, may lose out.

A review of land-ownership status by HT shows that while some states have their land records in order, many others don’t. Under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government’s Digital India Land Records Modernisation Programme (DILRMP), a revamp of the previous government’s National Land Records Modernisation Programme, Rs 1,403 crore was spent between 2014-15 and 2017-18 to computerise land titles. A title is a legal document that proves land ownership.

While the scheme is centrally sponsored, the actual work to clean up land titles is under a state’s jurisdiction.

A review letter sent to states on December 26, 2018 by the department of land resources, and seen by HT, reads: “States/UTs where significant progress has been made and work can be completed with minimum efforts are: Chhattisgarh, Daman & Diu, Haryana, Puducherry, Punjab, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh”.

The evaluation relates to computerisation of land records only, although the scheme has other goals, such as digitisation of worn-out British-era paper maps held in dusty revenue offices in about 500 villages.

The review letter also states that states/UTs “lagging behind other states” and which “need extra efforts and monitoring” include Assam, Bihar, Chandigarh, Goa, Kerala and Tripura. Jammu and Kashmir and Manipur have made no progress at all. Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Odisha have achieved near 100% completion, while 21 states are in various stages of issuing digitally signed “right of records”, a document chain tracing historical ownership and land transactions.

A parliament reply on January 3, 2019 stated that substantial progress is being made in 31 states/UTs on computerization. Updating land records in a digital database is no easy task. According to law ministry data, two-thirds of civil disputes in courts deal with land disputes over ownership.