A high-level panel associated with the Planing Commission has recommended that compensation in cases of land acquisition for public purposes be shared equally between spouses. It has also proposed a public land bank with local government bodies as arbitrators for economical cultivation of crops.
These and other suggestions of the committee headed by Bina Agarwal looking into the state of ?distressed and women farmers? could find their way into the 12th Plan approach paper, yet to be approved by the National Development Council (NDC).
All compensation for land acquisition, whether in cash, land or shares, must be distributed equally between both spouses, the panel said, in sync with its mandate to recommend measures to promote gender justice.
Gender-disaggregated data on land holdings for this purpose should be collected by all leading number-crunchers including the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), the agricultural census and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) debt and investment figures, according to the committee.
The report lays stress on the importance of communal or collective farming’ to ensure collective bargaining for both credit and as a way of reducing input costs. Large groups of marginal farmers would pool in land and input costs for better returns, and these groups would be recognised as a credit entity by banks and cooperatives, says the panel.
The panel recommends a scheme for registering a ?public land bank? with the local Panchayati Raj Institution (PRI). The concept is as follows: Land owners would be encouraged to deposit land which they do not wish to cultivate with the PRI; the period could vary between a single season to several years. The land owner who deposits land would be given an incentive per hectare of land deposited, analogous to current, savings and fixed deposits, with an additional amount being paid out if the land gets leased. The land bank could, in turn, lease this land to distressed and marginal farmers.
The lessees will get a guaranteed lease in a consolidated plot of land and institutional credit will be made available. A seed capital for the public land bank will be required from both the central and state governments in an 80:20 ratio or it could a 100% centrally-sponsored scheme.