AGRICULTURE LAND AND CEILING LAWS IN INDIA: AN OVERVIEW

Abstract

Land distribution is considered a State Policy to create economic equality within the agrarian structure. One of the means to reduce the disparity is to take away the excess lands from large holdings and redistribute them among the landless and small landholders.  Ceiling legislation is a measure of land reforms. This is stated easily but its implementation is a very complicated and difficult affair. At the very start we are faced with several questions. First, what should be the ceiling limit and secondly should the idea of redistribution of lands be applied to all classes of lands? For example, a tea garden has a very big holding, but it is an economic unit and cannot be broken up if is to function at all.                

 In India, State Governments made a lot of efforts and enacted so many land reforms laws including Land Ceiling Acts to reduce the inequality of agriculture land. But it is difficult to say that it could hardly attain the desired goal. There is no uniformity among the state for ceiling limit. The Ceiling laws have vast list of exceptions which nullify the object of the Act and a many time it seems that Land Ceiling Act itself is hindrance in proper implementation. For instance, these Acts provide that the land for industrial purposes, grove land, land utilized for special cultivation, land held a cooperative farming society and land vested in Gram Sabha are exempted from the application of Ceiling Act.