Land allocation programme engaging local youth to facilitate local revenue officials in Odisha, India

1. Community Resource Person (CRP) model of
making land inventory for allocation and
possession: experience from Odisha
Strategic Planning workshop for International Land Coalition
13th July 2012

2. Land Issues in Odisha
• Households have patta without possession and
possession without patta
• In Odisha, ceiling surplus and government wasteland
are being distributed since mid 70s
– Land allotted but patta not issued
– Allotted land cultivated by previous owner
– Land quality: not suitable for cultivation
• Less than 50% are cultivating land that have been
allotted
• No state or district wise data available on extent of
possession of land
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3. Land Issues in Odisha
• In order to check tribal land transfer, the OSATIP Regulation 2
of 1956 was further amended in 2002 and a deadline of
September 2004 was given to inform the Sub-Collector about
all previous transfers
• Land restoring campaign was launched in 2007 in the form of
Mo Jami Mo Diha
• Enumeration of landless in 2004-05: 2.49 lakh homesteadless
and 4.45 lakh landless households identified in an
enumeration by the Revenue & Disaster Management Dept.
• Vasundhara scheme launched in 2005-06 to provide
homestead land upto 4 cents (now 10) to homesteadless
families - 2.75 lakh families allotted homestead land between
2005-06 and 2010-11
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4. Enumeration and re-enumeration…
• Implementation challenges (assessment study done by
RDI in 88 villages across 10 districts during 2009-10)
– Patta without identification, demarcation and possession
– Allotted land far from habitation
– About 40% of households did not have secured rights over
homestead land
– People did not receive patta to current house sites, unwilling
to relocate, allotted house sites are not identified or
demarcated
– Capacity gaps at different levels
• 2011: Circular for re-enumeration, 2.36 lakh families
enlisted as homesteadless (Revenue Department)

5. Critical challenges to land allocation
Due to shortage of field level revenue staffs;
– No/very limited household survey to identify
homesteadless/landless families
– no field verification and use of old records
– Incorrect figures as regards actual number of
homesteadless/landless families
– Fairly ineffective monitoring system
– Land allocation ceased to be a priority area for revenue
staff
What is the alternative?

6. Local capacity model for allocating land to the landless
• CRP/Bhoomi Sanjojak is a;
– local literate youth
– selected jointly by the
community and the local RI,
– trained to provide
additional capacity for
identification of
homesteadless / landless
households
– On an average 150 – 200
households
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7. Process flowchart of land allocation through CRPs
Field
Phase I Data Phase II Identification
CRP selection Verification & Patta
training Collection training of landless
Camp Court
Household list, Triangulation –
land database matching
from RoR, FRA household list
allotees, village with the
validation landholding

8. Key features of land allocation using CRPs
• CRP helps in the non-technical aspects of the land
allocation process
• At each level of data collection validation is done
with the community
• Community involvement in the process in
identification and land allotment results in
greater transparency and collective decision
• Identification of land (free from encroachment)
that can be settled in favour of the landless
• Land database created for the village with
updated information from RoR and FRA list

9. Innovative land allocation….CRP model
• Land allocation plan with clearly identified steps with
a timeline that starts with identification of landless
and ends with grant of title
– The village household list is matched against the Record of
Rights (title holders’ record book) to filter out households
who do not have title to the land they reside or cultivate
– The revenue official undertakes a physical verification to
check the authenticity of the list prepared by the CRP
– Initiation of the process of regularisation of occupation by
filling relevant forms and submission of application
– Followed by claim verification through a camp court
– Grant of title

10. Innovative land allocation….CRP model
• Each step is time bound and the entire process, on
an average, takes between 4 to 6 months
• With a role in each step, the CRP works closely with
the revenue official, beneficiary and the community
• While the CRPs move the process, the field level
revenue official play a key role in CRP selection,
training and day-to-day functioning
• The scalable components of the model were;
– low cost, time bound, uncomplicated allocation process,
availability of literate youth

11. Land allocation using CRPs in Odisha
CRP Model Pilot
Status Results shared results
piloted in 3
assessment with Govt. and Govt.
districts
scale-up

12. Pilot to Scale
• The CRP model was scaled with a Government
programme - OTELP;
– The programme being implemented in the tribal areas with
complicated land situations
– Though land was a priority for the project, not much had
been done on the issue,
– The programme had the resources to hire CRPs and had the
necessary human resource to facilitate/oversee the CRPs
– Easier to convince why the programme should invest on
land allocation using a model that has been piloted
• Pilot had identified some land settlement challenges
that a Govt. programme could resolve

13. Land allocation: OTELP Collaboration
• OTELP collaborated with RDI to achieve status of “no landless”
using Community Resources Persons (CRPs) in 1042 villages, 30
blocks, 7 districts
• 550 CRPs are engaged in 1042 villages who have
identified over 30,000 homesteadless families
• Identification of landlessness is over in 978 villages (93%)
• 21% Absolute landless households (zero homestead and zero farm land)
• 31% less than 2 dec. of homestead land and less than 1 std ac of farm land
• 19% having homestead land less than 1 std ac of farm land
• 51% homesteadless households
• Field verification over in 485 villages (46%)
• Patta distribution completed for 137 villages – total of 5332
patta for homestead and farmland

14. Scaling opportunities
• Based on the success, Government of Odisha has
decided to scale the model to 118 tribal sub-plan
(TSP) blocks that has 18,000 villages with about 1
million households – most likely allocate land to
about half a million households
• Land allocation programme in collaboration with
National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) – initiated
in a one block, to gradually cover other blocks

15. Concluding remarks
• Third party – private individual can be effective in
land allocation for the poor, an example of Govt. –
Non Govt. – Community collaboration
• Transparent method of identification of landless and
land allocation process
• Commitment from Government has been crucial in
the land allocation programme not only in initial
piloting but also in scaling up
• Role of CRP can go much beyond land allocation…

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