Pending agri reform

Context: The pending reform of legalization of land leasing should not be further delayed, which can potentially help the rural poor move out of poverty. 

Challenges to land leasing in India:

• Highly restricted: Only some states allow selected individuals (disabled people, widows or armed forces personnel) to let out their lands.
• Fear of losing ownership rights: the small parcels of lands of migrants farmers, part of which are cultivable thus remain utilized 
• Other challenges to farmers: Gross injustice done to the tenant farmers and the sharecroppers by denying them compensation

Institutional steps toward Land leasing:

• NITI Aayog : introduced the idea
• Ashok Dalwai Committee: endorsed the idea while conceptualizing a framework on doubling of farmers’  income.
• T. Haque Committee: already has drafted a model land leasing law to serve the guide for states to and their land laws.

Way forward:

• Legal validation: the law on land leasing is required to undo the gross injustice done to them and supplementing them with cheap loans and subsidies.
• Tenurial Security: should be provided to incentive tenant cultivators to invest in land improvement and crop yield-enhancing measures to raise income.
• Persuade State governments: to accept the model land leasing law as it is non-controversial and does not affect land ownership.