State the objectives and measures of land reforms in India. Discuss how land ceiling policy on landholding…

Question

State the objectives and measures of land reforms in India. Discuss how land ceiling policy on landholding can be considered as an effective reform under economic criteria.

Ghissu Editorial · Accepted Answer

Land reforms sought equity, productivity and an end to exploitation through abolition of intermediaries, tenancy reform, ceilings, consolidation and records. Land ceilings are economically effective because small family farms yield more per acre, as the 1950s Farm Management Studies showed.

**Introduction**

The Second Five Year Plan gave land reform two aims: removing the agrarian impediments to production and ending exploitation of the tiller. Land ceilings joined both aims by spreading land while keeping it productive.

**Objectives and Measures of Land Reforms in India**

SKETCH: tree | Measures of Land Reform
- Land reforms
  - Intermediaries abolished
  - Tenancy reform
  - Land ceiling
  - Consolidation
  - Land records

1. **Equity**: Reform sought to break concentrated land ownership, a goal grounded in Article 39(b) and (c) of the Directive Principles.
2. **Productivity and fairness**: It gave cultivators a stake in the soil to draw investment, and ended rent extraction by zamindars and other intermediaries.
3. **Legal backing**: The First Amendment (1951) added Article 31A and the Ninth Schedule, and the 1972 national guidelines set ceilings at 10-18 acres for irrigated double-crop land and up to 54 acres for dry land.

**Land Ceiling as an Economically Effective Reform**

1. **Higher output per acre**: The 1950s Farm Management Studies, analysed by Amartya Sen, showed an inverse relation between farm size and productivity.
2. **Idle land into use**: A ceiling penalises absentee and speculative holding, pushing surplus land to cultivators who farm it intensively.
3. **Labour absorption**: Wider landholding absorbs surplus rural labour and widens local demand.
4. **The economic limit**: Benami transfers blunted redistribution and tiny units lack scale, so ceilings need consolidation and legal leasing alongside.

**Conclusion**

Land ceilings meet the economic test when they turn under-used estates into intensively farmed family holdings, despite evasion. With digitised records and legal leasing, they serve both justice and productivity and lift farm incomes.

State the objectives and measures of land reforms in India. Discuss how land ceiling policy on landholding can be considered as an effective reform under economic criteria.

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