Editorial
Landlessness is a serious issue
Wake-up call for a management policy
It is extremely worrying to note that the number of landless people in the country has increased three times in the last 50 years. It is a major problem since the bulk of the population still depends on agriculture for their livelihood.The phenomenon has exacerbated more or less at the same rate that the population has grown. It has a lot to do with fragmentation of holdings. River erosion and land grabbing by the influential people have greatly aggravated the situation. We believe that governments could have kept things under control through recovery and distribution of khas land, the total area of which is estimated at 50 lakh acres. But mismanagement in this important area, which could otherwise have considerably broadened the base of agriculture, has left a staggering 58 percent of the total population being landless. Distribution of khas land has not taken place in the last 10 years -- a phase in our farming sector over which the peasants achieved a breakthrough in productivity. If khas land were distributed and uncultivable parcels made fit for production, the output would have been so much more. Basically, the government failed to recover the khas land grabbed by powerful people. This also resulted in the land ownership ratio between the rich and poor being very lopsided. The political leadership has failed to tackle the problem of land grabbing, rather the grabbers are exerting political influence to throw their weight around and bend government policies. It is an example of the government failing to protect the interests of the poor and check the process of pauperisation. The people at the grassroots level have achieved great success through small agricultural projects. But the sharp increase in the number of landless leaves a big chunk of the rural population out of the purview of such projects. Some of the major factors contributing to the rise in the number of landless will have to be addressed. Obviously, river training and dredging will help solve the problem of large scale erosion and, needless to say, we have to cut back on our population growth rate that still continues to put pressure on the economy and threatens to lead to further shrinkage of the land-man ratio. However, the need of the hour is to reclaim fallow land, recover khas land in wrongful hands, redistribute them and, above all, have a comprehensive land utilisation policy.
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