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Improving agri land management
Siraj-ul- Hasan
Why has our agriculture not improved despite the adoption of various steps by the successive governments? A number of answers to this question have been given by experts and by inquiry committees and commissions, but the most appropriate and convincing seems to be the defective land tenure system controlling the management of land-holdings and farms. 
Pakistan has inherited a land-tenure system which, besides being feudalistic in nature, has no limit to be prescribed for individual ownership of land-holdings. The gravity may be gauged by the fact that at the creation of Pakistan, about 53 per cent of farm land was owned by only 7 per cent of the land owners.
The tax-free Jagirs and the land cultivated by the tenants at will with no legal protection and security made the matters worse. The big land owners were never serious in cultivating all their land, or in raising its productivity as they were receiving sufficient income on account of vast landholdings.
Land reforms: To deal with this situation, a number of land reforms since 1959 have been introduced. The first land reform provided abolition of tax-free estates (Jagirs), security of tenure to the tenants, ceiling on ownership of 500 acres irrigated land, exemption of orchards and livestock farms, resumption and re-distribution of the excess land after the payment of compensation of irrigated holdings and prohibition of sub-division or alienation resulting in uneconomic land units.
The second land reform was enforced in 1972 wherein, the permissible ceiling on the irrigated land was reduced from 500 to 150 acres and that of the unirrigated from 1000 to 300 acres. The excess land was resumed without any compensation, resumed land was granted free of cost to tenants and adequate protection to tenants was provided, payment of land revenue and other taxes was made the liability of the owners.
The third and the last one came in 1977 under which the land ownership was further reduced to 100 acres of irrigated and 200 acres of unirrigated land. Abolition of land revenue on holding of 25 acres or less and imposition of the agricultural income tax on large land owners was also provided.
Implementation of reforms: It was unfortunate that implementation was not even half-hearted. Only a total of 1,804,013 hectares could be resumed of which 59 per cent was obtained under the 1959 reforms and 27 per cent under the 1972 reforms. Redistribution of the resumed land was also unsatisfactory since less than half of it could be awarded to tenants, one-third was put to other uses and 18 per cent
remained undisposed of.
Present land tenure system: Although, the present land tenure system is comprehensive in nature but the record of land rights is incomplete. Most units of land are no longer owned on individual basis but are jointly owned with varying shares. The intensity of the situation goes back to the time when the land settlement was made.
The ban on the sub-division of holdings under the 1959 and 1972 land reforms made the situation still worse. In the revenue records a unit of land is taken to be self-operated when it is under operation by any one or more of the co-owners. In the course of agricultural census 1980 a cultivator reports all land in his possession as owned by him, in fact he may be just one of the several co-owners.
As such it is pretty difficult to have a reliable picture of the ownership pattern unless the entire record is scientifically analysed which is now much easier by means of computer networking. The correct record of ownership of holding is much important from the agrarian stand point. Through an analysis of the relevant data the following picture emerges:
- Around 2,713,000 owners (above 72 per cent) operate all the area owned by them which in concrete term amounts to 10 million hectares.
- Around 42,000 owners operate only the land owned by others amounting to 139,000 hectares.
- The total self-operated area is 12,251 million hectares or 68 per cent of all the owned area.
Operational holdings: Among other factors, agricultural productivity also depends on the size of land holding. Although small land holdings are more, but the holdings of bigger size also exist in sufficient number. According to the 1980 Agricultural Census, 15,000 farmers of 6 hectares or above exist across the country. The existence of big land holdings cannot be justified in view of limiting the ceiling of the individual ownership of holdings prescribed in the three land reforms. The justification of their existence is provided hereunder:
- Permissible ceiling on land ownership in terms of Production Index Units (PIU's) is 8000 plus any commercial area over and above the prescribed ceiling. Since these PIU's vary from region to region the permissible ceiling on land holding could vary from 75 acres to 800 acres or even more.
- Many land owners pool their land for operational purposes to get the benefit of economy of scale.
- Some enterprising businessmen take large areas of land on rental to operate it commercially as a scientific mechanized farm.
Revenue records: The maintenance of revenue records on the scientific line is perhaps the most important factor in streamlining the agriculture. A certified copy of the relevant portion of record is considered the conclusive proof of the ownership of land of an individual having a direct bearing on his credit-worthiness.
It is deplorable that such an important record in the country is maintained in a casual way by a low-paid revenue official called Patwari/Tapedar. In the present scheme of things he is a key person affecting the agricultural management. He, at times, assumes still greater importance when he is the only person at grass-root level for providing all sorts of agricultural statistics and other relevant data pertaining to his jurisdiction. Even for assessment of land revenue (Malguzari or Dhal) payable to government, he is the sole arbitrator.
As a matter of fact very little attention has so far been given to manage our agriculture on modern scientific lines. Perhaps, we have given no thought to this aspect while taking various other steps to bring about improvement in the agriculture.
Now, the prime responsibility falls on the provincial governments to make things better through the adoption of modern technologies for
revolutionizing this sector.
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Pakissan.com;
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