A Primer on Land Laws in India

Land is one of the most coveted assets in India, which also makes it the most disputed. And fragmented laws and lack of awareness of existing regulations do not help in any way. Things are further complicated by the fact that each state has its own unique set of laws pertaining to the acquisition, possession, and sale of land.

Land has an interesting history in India. Beginning with purely commercial interests, India’s land laws have evolved over time, albeit slowly, to include the interests of individual owners. But we still have a ways to go.

Let’s trace the origins of land laws in India, and see where we stand today.

Legislation during British rule

The British passed India’s very first land legislation in 1824. Known as the Bengal Resolution I of 1824, the law enabled the British to acquire land for the purpose of building transport links like roadways, railways, and canals.

Initially, this law was limited to Kolkata, and it was only over the next few years that different states began to enact similar legislations to apply in their territory.

In 1857, the British passed Act VI of 1857, which unified all the state laws under one umbrella and made it uniformly applicable to British territories across India.

It was in 1894, that the first Land Acquisition Act, which forms the basis for all land laws today came into being. It applied to all states in India except for Mysore, Hyderabad, and Travancore, the princely states that had the right to exercise their own land laws.

In 1947, India adopted the Land Acquisition Act and enforced it across “all the provinces of India” without exception.

Changes post the British era

Land legislation remained unchanged for a long time after India gained independence. It was only in 1998 that the first amendments were even proposed.

After languishing in the Parliament for many years, passing through multiple referrals and calls for amendments, the Land Acquisition Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, (LARR) 2011 was introduced again by the UPA government.

In 2013, it was passed and became effective from 2014. The bill focused on bringing in more transparency by underlining the rights of the people who stood to lose land during the process of acquisition.

It stipulated that if land needed to be acquired for private purposes, it would be legally possible only if 80% of the affected families gave their consent while 70% of families have to give their consent for public-private partnership purposes. Not just that, it laid out ground rules on how to compensate the affected families as well.

But being transparent, especially in matters of land, is not easy. In 2014, the Modi government proposed changing the consent clause along with the assessment of the impact on the people losing their land.

Land laws today

In 2015, the LARR ordinance lapsed after going through many proposals and oppositions from activists. However, the central government decreed that it would allow various state governments to continue to enforce the law and to make individual changes to certain clauses in LARR with permission from the President.

Eight states in India have made amendments to LARR that have allowed for better rights for landowners, which might facilitate land acquisition. For example, in Telangana, the state’s amendment has tried to make acquiring land an easier process by offering higher compensation and flexibility to displaced people. Land pooling is one such process that is expected to benefit both the buyers and the sellers.

Land pooling

Land pooling is an innovative way of rewarding farmers who lose their land. How does it work? 

A group of landowners decide to voluntarily give ownership rights of their land to a government body, which in turn consolidates these fragments. The agency then works on setting up infrastructure and amenities on these different parcels of land, and once developed, returns a portion of it to the owners. The hope is that even if the landowners receive only a part of their land back, it should have risen in value thanks to the developmental efforts made on it.

The most prominent example is that of Andhra Pradesh, which has led the way in its adoption of the land pooling process to develop 33,000 acres of land brought in from 25,000 farmers between Vijayawada and Thullur. It works in favour of both parties as there is hardly any disruption caused. It also turns out to be cheaper for the government and is expected to be beneficial in the long run for the landowners.

The model is not without its dissidents but for now it seems to be working at least in some parts.