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Jairam Ramesh incurs states' wrath over 'Homestead' Bill-Ullekh NP
-The Economic Times

A Bill that envisages offering the rural poor right to land and a home has invited criticism from states for not consulting them and for being "impractical". Land is a state subject.

The National Right to Homestead Bill, 2013 - drafted by a task force chaired by Union minister Jairam Ramesh -would offer a poor family in the country side right to a piece of land of not less than 10 cents. One cent is one-hundredth of an acre.

While Uttam Reddy, housing minister in the Congress-ruled Andhra Pradesh, is unaware of the details of the Bill, V Somanna, his Karnataka counterpart, says Ramesh is chasing an "impossible dream". Somanna's logic is that if you want to build homes for the poor, you have to build high-rises. "Let's not forget that land is scarce even in the villages in many states. Giving away not less than 10 cents of land is impossible in many states," he says.

TM Thomas Isaac, former Kerala finance minister and a central committee member of CPM, says he isn't opposed to the Bill in principle. "But the implementation of such a law would be nearly impossible because of two reasons," he says. Most Indian states - which have been under Congress rule for decades - have not successfully implemented the Land Ceiling Act, which alone, he says, can leave states with surplus land.

"In Kerala similar schemes were implemented as early as 1971," he notes, claiming that besides Kerala it is only states such as Left-ruled Tripura and West Bengal that have "properly" implemented land reforms. "Now Kerala is a land-scarce state where city-village divisions are thin. If you are to offer land to the shelter-less in the state, you will have to find land elsewhere," he argues. "Why should someone want to leave his or her state and settle somewhere else?" he asked.

Isaac says that to come up with such a Bill instead of first implementing the Land Ceiling Act, is a poll gimmick in the run-up to the 2014 general election. "Even if they want to use it as a poll trump card we will support the move in principle. But clearly it is an impractical idea," he asserts.

In Kerala, parties such as Muslim League and Kerala Congress wield enormous clout in the present Congress dispensation and these parties have in the past fought tooth and nail any effort at land reformation by Left regimes. "This is not applicable in Kerala," says a state minister, who didn't wish to be identified. Like Somanna, he also suggested that state governments build high-rises to address the issue of land scarcity. As regards charges of the Ramesh-led move being a poll gimmick, he says, "In states like Kerala, such a step will only hurt the prospect of the UDF (Congress-led coalition)."

Ramesh didn't reply to questions e-mailed to him by ET.

The draft Bill, which is expected to come up for inter-ministerial consultations at the Centre soon, says that the Central government would bear 75% cost of enforcing the right of the rural poor and the rest by the states.

At least two senior Congress leaders - one from Uttarakhand and another from Uttar Pradesh - poked fun at the Bill, saying many states will have to provide land to the homeless in other states. They didn't want to be named because they didn't want to be seen as commenting against a "proposal that (Congress president) Sonia Gandhi hasn't yet said yes or no to".

"Yielding to an NGO's whims is not a good governmental decision. I don't think it is even a good political decision," says the Uttarakhand Congress leader, referring to what he calls Ramesh's "hurry", which follows an agreement signed last year by the Centre with agitating landless people, led by activist PV Rajagopal of Ekta Parishad.

Many other states, too, are piqued that they have not been consulted on the Bill, which, if made into a law, require them to identify the land for allotment, allot and provide titles and offer all related services. Housing ministers of some states didn't respond to e-mails from ET.