Weak legal guidelines, agrarian distress reducing farmland in the country
Agrarian distress and the politico-land mafia nexus in Jammu and Kashmir leave a ‘devastating path’ in the back of the conversion of agricultural land for non-agricultural functions maintained at an alarming rate, making the nation also depend on meal imports to feed its 1.25-crore populace.
According to government records, approximately 50,585 hectares (10 lakh canals) of fertile cultivable land were converted into residential and industrial assets inside the state throughout the past decade on my own. The trend continues without enforcing any laws to stop this kind of exercise.
Commercial and home colonies are developing throughout villages and cities of J&K. The scenario is more catastrophic within the capital cities of Jammu and Srinagar, which might be eating up land in their surrounding villages to meet the needs of the increasing populace and improvement desires.
Land Revenue Act and J&K Agrarian Reforms Act, Prohibition on Conversion of Land, and Alienation of Orchards Act have been misused. The authorities have failed to test the blatant violation as the sales department, the model employer to enforce the laws, district administrations, and policymakers have intentionally looked the other way toward arresting such practices.
In 2011, The J&K Prohibition on Conversion of Agricultural Land for Non-Agricultural Purposes Act Bill was delivered with the aid of the then Agriculture Minister in the Congress-NC government, Ghulam Hassan Mir, to make bureaucrats and civil servants accountable for their respective regions. The Bill was met with resistance and was no longer handed via the Legislature. It became cited as a pick-out committee but lapsed after the brand-new PDP-BJP authorities took over the reins in 2015.
“Till bureaucrats and politicians aren’t made responsible, conversion cannot be stopped. I don’t want to call everyone, but the Bill was taken seriously, especially MLAs and even ministers. Existing legal guidelines have a lot of loopholes”, stated the previous Agriculture Minister.
Senior officers within the agriculture branch discovered that the conversion would be more as, in most instances, the land has been declared barren in sales files, making it easy for the land mafia to avoid the rules.
“Shrinking farmland is contributing to the nation’s dependence on imports of meal grain to satisfy necessities. It has even affected the horticulture quarter”, said Altaf Aijaz Andrabi, director of agriculture, Kashmir.
According to the agriculture branch’s evaluation, the nation is predicted to face a foodgrain deficit of as much as 50% via 2030-31. Shrinking farmland should further get worse in the state of affairs.
“There is simple money in promoting land. The younger generation in rural areas no longer wants to take pleasure in farming because of fewer returns and the government’s failure to introduce technology in manufacturing. Big developers and belongings sellers are taking gain of the agrarian distress to gather land. Developmental projects have also accelerated the land fees”, stated Tejinder Singh, a farm activist.
Alarmed by the rule violation, previous PDP-BJP authorities ordered all deputy commissioners in J&K to implement the prevailing rules strictly, but this order remained just rhetoric.
