States put spanner on Centre's Public Land Bank move

PLBs were to be floated at Panchayat levels, pooled from big landowners uncultivated land

The states have shown little interest to a central government proposal to create Public Land Banks at the panchayat level to help small and women farmers get more involved in agriculture.

According to the proposal, the Public Land Banks (PLB) were to be floated at the Panchayat levels, pooled from big landowners uncultivated land.

The Bank would then lease out the collected land to small and women farmers or their collectives.

The landowners were to receive regular payments which would vary depending upon the period of deposit of land and rents actually obtained. This land could be withdrawn by the owner on a suitable notice.

The proposal was discussed in a recent meeting between the Central government and the states on revamping agriculture ministry’s flagship programme, the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) in the 12th five-year plan (2012-13 to 2016-17).

Officials present in the meeting said that state governments were not at all interested to discuss the proposal. The proposal to create Public Land Banks in villages was first mooted by a Planning Commission working group on agriculture sector.

According to the proposal, this land could not be leased out to corporate entities.

“This land bank will provide a form of limited tenancy aimed at fuller agricultural use of available farm land to slow down speculation in such land for future non-agricultural use,” the draft proposal said.

But, to set up such a land bank would require initial seed capital and clear legal framework. The Planning Commission had proposed that if state governments provide necessary guarantees and legal framework, the initial seed capital could also be permissible under RKVY.

But, officials said the state governments outrightly rejected this proposal as being not feasible.

Meanwhile, the government might allow the state governments to spend 30-40% of the annual allocation under RKVY for construction of infrastructure and assets related to agriculture.

In the 11th five-year plan (2006-07 to 2011-12), the state governments were only allowed to spend RKVY funds in two ways either on specific projects  or to strengthen the existing state sector schemes and fill resource gaps.

“In the 12th plan we proposed some critical changes in RKVY, rules for which will have to ultimately framed by the department of agriculture,” a senior Planning Commission official said.