Urban Land Management: A Legal & Administrative Perspective

Abstract

My paper revolves around the question: What ails urban land management in India? In the process, we look at the history of urban land management in this country, the problems that continue to dog us, and the remedial measures that may help alleviate or solve our problems. Land management in urban India faces 3 distinct challenges: The chief among these is the quintessential demand vs supply problem; related is the Nature & Quantum of Regulation and the third is the Social perception and its Impact of land. So right away, we realize that the issues relating to land management are not just land acquisition problems. It encompasses acquisition no doubt but goes way beyond it. To understand this in a coherent manner, we need to look at the history of land management in India. With history doing its bit to constrain land markets, economics took care of the rest. There are certain characteristics of land, and urban land in India in particular, which discourage commodification and hence constrain its marketability. I categorize these as inherent problems of and, institutional (by this I mean administrative) limitations, and finally, Legal & Regulatory distortions. What is the way forward? The first thing to understand is that the land question has become so complicated and complex, reform has to be necessarily step by step and gradual. More important than the measures to be taken is a change in the underlying thinking philosophy on land. The first step is a realization of the need to build up robust land markets. Land, labour, capital are the 3 major factors of production; we have achieved a measure of deregulation in capital & labour, Land deregulation is the crying need now. It also needs an acceptance that the gradual commodification of urban land is both inevitable and desirable. Rather, the path forward should be the gradual easing of stringent and elaborate procedures for converting agricultural Land for NA Uses or restricting sale and transfer of land are irrelevant in urban areas. At the same time a balance has to be achieved between the need for land for developmental activities and the need to protect the interests of those impacted by the acquisition of the land — landowners, tenants, landless labourers, and others whose livelihoods depend on the land.