Public Use Authorized South Asia Agriculture and Rural Growth Discussion Note Series Strategies to Increase Poor Farmers’ Access to Land and Related Benefits in India Build Farmers’ Land Rights Awareness and Last-Mile Access to Legal Aid JUNE 2021 Photo credit: WGWLO Strategies to Increase Poor Farmers’ Access to Land and Related Benefits in India Build Farmers’ Land Rights Awareness and Last-Mile Access to Legal Aid Photo credit: Charuben Koli Patel – BMVS/WGWLO This discussion note profiles approaches for building poor farmers’ legal awareness and access to legal support to resolve land disputes. 1. Overview Context ƒƒ Landlessness is a key driver of poverty in rural India, especially among vulnerable farmers, such as members of Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), and women. ƒƒ A significant percentage of vulnerable farmers are either landless or have insecure rights to land, leading to complex land disputes. ƒƒ As eligibility for government agricultural entitlements is increasingly linked to formal land records, helping vulnerable farmers resolve land disputes and secure land access with updated land records is critical for their ability to fully contribute to India’s agricultural transformation. Interventions ƒƒ Build legal awareness among poor and marginalized farmers (especially women, SC, and ST), particularly on land rights and agricultural entitlements. ƒƒ Help women farmers claim inheritance through (i) increasing their awareness of inheritance rights and related legal provisions and (ii) supporting them to negotiate with family to obtain legal heir rights. ƒƒ Support vulnerable (especially SC/ST) farmers to resolve land disputes and secure possession of lands legally allocated to them through government land allocation programs. Impact ƒƒ Secured title and possession of land. ƒƒ Reduced time and cost of securing land. ƒƒ Increased access to agricultural entitlements, including subsidized credit, extension services, and marketing support. ƒƒ Women were recognized by their communities as ‘farmers’, providing them a greater sense of empowerment and ability to advocate for their rights. Lessons Learned ƒƒ A multi-tiered, multi-competency institutional architecture with grassroots paralegals and para-surveyors as its core can enable poor farmers, women farmers, and SC/ST farmers to understand relevant land laws, negotiate inheritance rights, resolve land disputes, and access related land services. ƒƒ The efficacy of the initiative is increased when the State Rural Livelihood Missions (SRLMs) lead the initiative with technical support from credible non-profits that have expertise on land issues and law universities. ƒƒ Building local capacity and a cadre of community (preferably women) trainers or service providers (for example, paralegals) is critical to sensitively and effectively deliver essential land services at scale to vulnerable farmers. ƒƒ The involvement of local-level government officials in the studied programs enhanced their understanding and sensitivity about women’s land rights. 2. Context members of SC, ST, and women. As eligibility for government agricultural entitlements is increasingly linked to formal land records, it is imperative to Landlessness is a key driver of poverty and help vulnerable farmers access farmland with vulnerability in rural India, especially among documented land rights. In the long term, this 2 | Build Farmers’ Land Rights Awareness and Last-Mile Access to Legal Aid will enable them to fully contribute to India’s agricultural transformation. Legal reforms – such as formalizing agricultural land leasing1 – remain a key instrument for addressing access barriers for vulnerable farmers. To complement top-down legal reforms, this note focuses on an important bottom-up strategy to increase vulnerable farmers’ access to land and related benefits: raising land rights awareness and mobilizing last-mile legal aid to resolve land disputes and inheritance claims. A significant percentage of vulnerable farmers are either landless or have insecure rights to land. Consequently, they are often trapped in complex land disputes. Insecure land rights mean that Photo credit: WGWLO farmers lack at least one of the three essential ingredients of legal tenure security: possession of often lack awareness of their legal land rights, land- land, community recognition of their land rights, related procedures, and eligibility for government and possession of a formal land record in their programs that aim to support poor farmers. In name. such a scenario, complementary community-based Three key underlying constraints for vulnerable initiatives to raise legal awareness and provide last- farmers to secure land rights are: (i) limited mile legal aid are required. Experience from several legal awareness, (ii) absence of legal aid, and states suggests that such initiatives can effectively (iii) inaccessible land administration systems. To support vulnerable farmers to access administrative address these constraints, several government and benefits and help them seek legal recourse to civil society initiatives over the past three decades secure their land rights. have worked to: This note specifically weaves together the ƒƒ Build farmers’ awareness on legal provisions experiences of the West Bengal State Rural related to land rights, land laws, inheritance Livelihoods Mission (WBSRLM) and Landesa, rights, and agricultural entitlements; Working Group of Women for Land Ownership ƒƒ Provide support and skills to help women (WGWLO) in Gujarat, IKP-Bhoomi program of negotiate with family to obtain legal heir Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP) rights; and in Andhra Pradesh, and the Odisha Tribal Empowerment Livelihood Project (OTELP). ƒƒ Provide legal aid to help vulnerable The note describes a best practice approach for (especially SC/ST) farmers resolve building awareness and facilitating access to legal land disputes and secure possession of aid for vulnerable farmers in the country. lands legally allotted to them by the government. Pro-poor land laws, administrative capacity, and 3. Interventions judicial infrastructure form a vital foundation for securing the land rights of the most vulnerable A successful community-based legal aid approach farmers. However, experience suggests that builds on the premise that the poor and women these supply-side policies and state investments farmers require comprehensive support to be are often insufficient on their own to enable aware of their land rights and, subsequently, vulnerable farmers to access benefits. Farmers to exercise them. Several cross-cutting design principles underpin the successful examples, as 1 See the related discussion note: Agricultural Land Leasing Reform in India analyzed below: Build Farmers’ Land Rights Awareness and Last-Mile Access to Legal Aid | 3 a) Strategic partnerships involving Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), gram panchayats, and educational institutions are key to leveraging technical knowledge and support (see Box 1). Box 1: Institutions Involved in Addressing Land Rights Issues A community-based legal empowerment approach would minimally include each of the three key actors: (i) state agencies like State Rural Livelihoods Missions (SRLMs), (ii) community institutions, and (iii) knowledge agencies. It is also important to leverage the respective sectoral roles and programs of the Departments of Land Revenue and Agriculture to disseminate relevant information on welfare programs, entitlements, and institutional processes and to provide grievance redressal platforms. State Rural Livelihoods Mission/Lead Community Institutions NGO/State Project • Select Community Resource Persons (CRPs) as • Mobilize farmer beneficiaries requiring paralegals/para-surveyors to receive training support on land-related issues and provide frontline legal/technical support • Select a knowledge agency (NGO/law to community members on land issues college) at the state level to be lead • Monitor para-workers’ performance and ensure partner timely payments • Support a knowledge agency to host Legal • Finalize the inventory of community members’ Assistance Centers (LACs) land-related issues and specific member-wise • Finance costs of knowledge agency and areas that require support LAC for 3-5 years • Prioritize support wherever required Knowledge Agencies (NGOs/Law College) • Develop training curriculum and elect master trainers to train para-workers with support of law graduates and retired revenue officials • Host LACs with master trainers • Position staff to host and manage paralegal centers at the block level for the poor to access legal aid services • Organize regular legal clinics/camps to provide free legal consultation on complex land disputes • Finance a panel of lawyers to represent the poor in their court cases • Provide regular and periodic training for land administration officials and judges b) Community-level awareness and capacity building on key themes (see Box 2) delivered through credible, strong, existing community-based organizations, such as women’s Self-Help Groups (SHGs). Box 2: Key Training Themes for Creating Awareness on Land Rights • Different uses of land and how these are linked to ownership rights • Legal provisions governing land rights in general and women’s land rights, including under Hindu, Muslim and Christian Personal Laws and other laws promoting women’s land rights, such as equal inheritance and joint titling • Various forms of land records: for example, sale deed, patta (land ownership record), khatiyan (land record), rent receipts, and their variations • Legal procedures for land transactions (sale and purchase), inheritance, government land settlements, and the mutation process (change of land record following transfer of ownership) • Digital options for viewing and lodging applications for updating land records using mobile apps and the e-platform of the state land administration • Eligibility for various land-related schemes 4 | Build Farmers’ Land Rights Awareness and Last-Mile Access to Legal Aid c) Multi-level Legal Assistance Centers (LACs) with qualified human resources (see Box 3) aligned with the Department of Land Revenue hierarchy (at state, district, block, and village levels) that provide technical and legal assistance to address the complex land issues facing vulnerable farmers. Box 3: Structure of Multi-Level Legal Assistance Centers Village Level Resources Community Resource Person/ Land Sub-Committees Paralegals Para-surveyor yy 3-5 active members yy 3-5 youth or women per block yy 1 local youth per village in a Village identified from the community and yy Identifies target farmers Organization (VO) trained in alternative dispute resolution (women, SC/ST) for legal of a three-tier SHG mechanisms awareness and aid structure, trained yy Provide legal education and aid services yy Prepares inventory of in the basics of land to households that need assistance for all land in the village laws, records, and securing their land rights (including parcel map) and related procedures yy Conduct local enquiry and collect lists landless and tenants necessary information required for filing yy Collates list of land petitions/cases before the appropriate problems and disputes of authorities the poor and women yy Assist the farmers in filing the yy Assists paralegals in petitions/cases in revenue and resolving the identified civil courts; draft legal letters for problems approaching the revenue officials; yy Shares the information follow up on existing cases; and prepare with land administration clients for counselling at specialized officials legal clinics Block/Tehsil Level Resources Coordinator Land Sub-Committees Legal Assistance Centers yy A law graduate yy 3-5 active members yy Dedicated center at the block level yy Provides technical support at Cluster Level to coordinate the work by the para- to the paralegals and acts Federation (CLF) workers and improve their interface as Master Trainer of a three-tier SHG with government (Departments yy Connects village workers structure, trained in of Land Revenue and Agriculture); with block officials basics of land laws, managed by two para-workers and one records, and related nodal person from the facilitating NGO procedures District Level Resources Legal NGO Land Manager Panel of Lawyers yy Hosts legal clinics to build yy A retired revenue yy Represents the poor in civil courts on capacity of paralegals officer land matters, whenever required to address technically yy Provides support complicated disputes to the coordinator, especially for government liaison Central Level Resources State Rural Livelihoods Mission/NGO/State Project yy Oversees all activities relating to knowledge production and capacity building of community cadre yy Facilitates access to legal support, information, and land records yy Provides legal aid yy Interfaces with corresponding-level government departments to resolve land cases (Land Revenue Department) and avail relevant land-related agriculture entitlements (Agriculture Department) Build Farmers’ Land Rights Awareness and Last-Mile Access to Legal Aid | 5 d) Legal clinics with specialized attorneys can support paralegals to resolve complex land disputes that require higher-level legal expertise. Box 4: Impact Andhra Pradesh Odisha • Government of Andhra Pradesh issued • Title and possession were secured for 17,427 a government order2 to constitute land tribal households (11 percent farmland and committees at various levels (state, 89 percent homestead land) district, divisional, mandal or block) and • Government of Odisha scaled up meet as often as needed to resolve the the work to 18,000 villages in land issues of the poor identified by Indira 118 Tribal Sub Plan blocks across Kranthi Patham (IKP) land staff 12 districts in 2012 • Title and possession secured to 430,000 • The project (which also includes watershed households development activities) increased annual • No transaction costs (reduced household farm production by 140 percent expenditure) • 43,842 families got on average 1.2 acres each developed under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment West Bengal Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) • Increased legal awareness and enhanced • 280,000 families accessed credit women farmers’ capacity to access government services related to agricultural land (see Figure 1) • Increased access to credit, extension, and Gujarat markets and enabled crop diversification • 8,818 women accessed inheritance rights to • Created demand to scale up program to land, and 7,551 women claimed agriculture- 750,000 members across 106 blocks in based public services entitlements from 2020-21 2013-2019 • Women farmers secured an average of 0.60 Figure 1. Impacts of Women’s Land Literacy acres each, and INR 61 lakh (USD 84,138) Training in West Bengal worth of public services were mobilized during the period 2017-2019 32% women could describe what • 2,575 women farmers (of which two-thirds is meant by the record of rights and are tribal) shifted to sustainable agriculture what documents constitute it practices from 2017-2019 • Land access cost reduced substantially – 36% women were able to recall 40 percent of the respondents surveyed which office needs to be approached had accessed land within 3 months and 78 for obtaining record of rights percent within 12 months as per an impact study in 2019 45% women recalled to which office the application for mutation • 80 percent of the women beneficiaries surveyed reported having acquired a new needs to be submitted identity of ‘woman farmer’, and 75 percent reported feeling more empowered to make 34% women could identify which their own decisions within the household office to visit for obtaining a according to the 2019 impact study succession certificate 2 G.O. No. 1148 6 | Build Farmers’ Land Rights Awareness and Last-Mile Access to Legal Aid 4. Lessons Learned mile land administration support to help both government authorities and the poor identify and resolve land issues. Training local Institutional Support Architecture paralegals and para-surveyors is a low-cost, high-impact solution to secure land rights for ƒƒ A multi-tiered, multi-competency institutional vulnerable farmers. For example, the annual architecture is needed to provide last-mile cost per paralegal under SERP’s IKP-Bhoomi land services at scale to vulnerable farmers. program was approximately INR 100,000 SRLMs in partnership with credible, technically (USD 2,200), which includes salary, travel, competent NGOs and law universities are training, and management costs3. best positioned to finance and manage LACs spanning the state, district, block, and village levels. These LACs bring together all Building Capacity the resources and activities needed to help ƒƒ Vulnerable farmers require technical capacity vulnerable farmers, especially women and in multiple related topics to secure their land SC/ST farmers, resolve land disputes and rights and fully benefit from their land. An access secure, documented land rights and external agency specialized in land rights and related land services. The formation of a related laws and procedures can help identify land sub-committee within the VO/CLF and the training needs for various actors (farmers, identification of SHG leaders as lead trainers can para-workers, Department of Land Revenue enable community-based training programs officials), develop course modules using adult to scale effectively through the existing SHG learning pedagogy, and deliver ‘training of the network. trainers’ on these topics. ƒƒ Well-trained community paralegals and ƒƒ To boost production and marketing outcomes, para-surveyors can provide effective last- efforts to strengthen vulnerable farmers’ Photo credit: Ritayan Mukherjee – The World Bank 3 Kumar, M. Sunil. 2013. A Systems Approach for Providing Legal Aid for Land. Paper presented at the Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty, Washington, DC, April 8-11, 2013. Build Farmers’ Land Rights Awareness and Last-Mile Access to Legal Aid | 7 land rights need to be accompanied by farmers benefit from existing agricultural support to improve their access to extension support programs. services and agricultural entitlements linked to land. Helping poor farmers obtain Gender Responsiveness updated land records is critical to make ƒƒ Training and sensitizing land revenue officials them eligible for Department of Agriculture on gender issues is crucial to improve the schemes that rely on land records, including gender responsiveness of land administration direct benefit transfers, like Pradhan services. The training and involvement of Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN), local Department of Land Revenue officials as well as subsidized inputs, credit, and crop (Revenue Inspector, Amin, Tehsildars) in the insurance. Sharing farmer inventories and studied programs enhanced these officials’ facilitating access to databases across the understanding of women’s land rights. It also Departments of Agriculture and Revenue improved their ability to consider land issues is equally important to ensure vulnerable from the perspective of women. ABOUT THE DISCUSSION NOTE SERIES This note is part of the South Asia Agriculture and Rural Growth Discussion Note Series, which seeks to disseminate operational learnings and implementation experiences from rural, agriculture, and food systems programs in South Asia. It is based on the findings of the Land Policy Reform for Agricultural Transformation in India Study under the India Agriculture and Rural Development Advisory Services and Analytical Program. The other notes in this series include: • Increase Land Access for Land-Poor Women Farmers • Help Vulnerable Farmers Access Formal Land Records • Informally Register Farmers' Customary Land Rights in Tribal Areas • Promising State Initiatives to Increase Poor Farmers’ Access to Land and Agricultural Services • Agricultural Land Leasing Reform in India Author: Balakrishnan Madhavan Kutty Series editor: Mercedes Stickler Acknowledgements: This note has been co-funded by the South Asia Research Hub – Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), Government of UK, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), and the World Bank. Overall technical guidance was provided by Gayatri Acharya, with comments received from Adarsh Kumar, Maria Beatriz Orlando, Mika Torhonen, and Sudip Mozumder. Disclaimer: The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the UK Government’s official policies, Gates Foundation policies, or the policies of the World Bank and its Board of Executive Directors. 8 | Build Farmers’ Land Rights Awareness and Last-Mile Access to Legal Aid