The State government has differed with the proposal made in the National Land Reforms draft policy to lower the existing land ceiling limit in the State.
The draft policy suggested the land ceiling of five to 10 acres for irrigated lands and 10 to 15 acres for rain-fed lands.
In the State, the ceiling is in the range of 10 acres to 54 acres depending on irrigation facilities and local conditions and varied from district to district.
However, the State resolved not to lower the ceiling because small holdings will not be economical with increasing labour wages and farm mechanisation would not be viable for small holdings.
Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy held a meeting with Revenue Minister N. Raghuveera Reddy and senior officials here on Friday to discuss the Centre’s draft policy related to agricultural lands in rural areas, land reforms and management. The State would be sending a report with its views.
A proposal in the draft policy for giving a house and 10 cents of land to the landless poor was, however, welcomed with an amendment to increase the amount sanctioned for house under IAY from Rs.70,000 to Rs.2 lakh to Rs.3 lakh.
Speaking to media persons, Mr. Raghuveera Reddy said that several provisions included in the draft policy were already in force in the State. Be it computerisation of land records, focus on tenant farmers’ welfare, protection of government lands, endowment lands, distribution of government land to poor for agriculture or norms for allotting government land to non-government organisations.
The Koneru Rangarao Committee’s recommendations on land reforms were already in implementation in the State, he said.
The State leads in the country in distribution of land to poor farmers and it had distributed 78 lakh acres so far. Another 1.3 lakh acres of government agricultural land would be distributed. Laws were in force to prevent transfer of Dalits’ lands to others and two lakh acres of illegally transferred lands had been restored to Dalits.
