New land lease policy soon to boost agriculture

NEW DELHI: The government will soon frame a policy to encourage land leasing that will bring unused land under agriculture, ensure credit flow to the tillers and extend the benefit of its crop insurance net.

The change is going to be a key pillar of the architecture needed to deliver on PM Narendra Modi’s promise to double farm incomes by 2022. A panel set up by the government’s think-tank, Niti Aayog, has given a report to the rural development ministry outlining the contours of the policy and a model law that states can enact.

“The proposal is being prepared for the cabinet. It should be ready in a month or two. A model law will be drafted and the states encouraged to adopt it to permit leasing of land,” a senior minister told HT.

Leasing of agricultural land is either banned or restricted in most parts of the country.

A government official said the restrictive regime was introduced after Independence to protect landless labourers from exploitation by the zamindars. Besides, there are laws that entitle labourers to rights over land that they have been tilling.In its report, the panel headed by former Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) chairman T Haque has recommended that the restrictive regime had cost the country dear. There were large tracts of land that were lying unutilised as the landowners were afraid of losing their title to the tenants. Haque has long been an advocate of legalising leasing to increase access of land to the landless or semi- landless poor, arguing that this would accelerate diversified and inclusive rural growth.“The Haque committee has, however, recommended that leasing should not be done to private companies,” a government official said. Instead, it sought to encourage landowners to lease their land to cooperatives or self- help groups.