People Centered Land Governance - Ensuring Land Tenure Rights to Marginalized and Vulnerable Communities

Ramesh Sharma, Ekta Parisad moderating the session on "People Centered Land Governance"

The session was moderated by Ramesh Sharma, Ekta Parisad and he opened the discussion with the issues around land governance and policy where the governability of land remains as an issue. In spite of 1200 land legislation existing in India, none of these talk about land guarantee. There has been an implementation gap where less than 12% of land is redistributed to landless poor and growing landlessness is the biggest issue before the country.

Anju Burk, Landesa highlighted that there is no mechanism for general people to know all these legislation and laws. Due to lack of awareness and implementation issues, most land goes to the influential people and land is not considered as priority by Panchayats also.

Mr. Rawat from SDF spoke about prejudices around land governance. He said Panchayati Raj system don't have an anatomy and the caste system dominates the villages and mostly urban eccentric. Land for social justice is important for democracy. Land was sidelined by agriculture or other industries. Land accusation is growing in poor counties and common lands are acquired making dalits and tribal the victims of land accusation. The industries needs to adopt democratic model with transparent land distribution approach. 

Dinesh Rabari from MARAG shared the challenges faced by the people from Gujarat who are dependent on the pasture for earning their livelihood from livestock rearing. He highlighted the recognition of pasture land to these communities which is their priority need. 

Nirmalendu Jyotishi from FES spoke how FRA helped PESA to be implemented. FRA was a game changer for people and by the end of 2011, many States implemented FRA Rules. Lack of technology and intentions, the Government could not effectively implemented FRA to benefit tribal people who suffered from the historic injustice.