Resource information
In India, land continues to be of
enormous economic, social, and symbolic relevance. The way
in which land can be accessed and its ownership documented
is at the core of the livelihood of the large majority of
the poor, especially in rural and tribal areas and
determines the extent to which increasingly scarce natural
resources are managed. Land policies and administration are
critical determinants of the transaction cost associated
with modalities to access land for productive, residential,
and business use and, through the ease of using land as
collateral for credit, the development of the financial
sector. Land is also a major source of government revenue
and a key element for implementing government programs. This
implies that land policies and institutions will have a
far-reaching impact on the ability to sustain India's
current high rate of growth, the extent to which such growth
reaches the poor, and the level and spatial distribution of
economic activity. At the same time, the policies put in
place by different states and the institutions tasked to
implement them often fail to live up to the importance of
the issue. In fact, land administration institutions seem to
impose high costs without generating commensurate benefits
and are generally perceived as corrupt, mismanaged, and
lacking transparency. With land reform policies having
largely run their course, and growing evidence that
restricting land rental may do little to help the poor, many
observers have lost confidence in the ability of land
institutions to contribute to the welfare of the poor or the
potential for improving the performance of land
administration. In this chapter the author first show that
land administration in India does indeed have shortcomings
but also use data from India to show that addressing the
shortcomings of the land administration system is necessary.
The report then highlights some of the recent success
stories to argue that doing so is entirely feasible but only
if, in addition to focusing on technical aspects, a number
of policy issues are addressed as well.
