 "Explained: Like Himachal, you might not be able to buy land in the hills of Uttarakhand. What’s the law the state is considering?")
Your dream of a house in the hills of Uttarakhand might not be fulfilled. The state has proposed an amendment to the state’s land law similar to Himachal Pradesh, which prevents “outsiders” from buying land .
How will the land law change?
The changes to the existing land law have been a long-standing demand in the state, which seeks to restrict non-domicile from purchasing land in the hill areas.
A committee, which was set up last year to recommend amendments to the land laws, is likely to submit its recommendations to the Pushkar Singh Dhami government in the next 10 days.
A majority of the people are in favour of stricter land laws on the lines of those in Himachal Pradesh, so that the sale and purchase of land, especially in the hills, is regulated, chairman of the panel and former chief secretary Subhash Kumar told PTI.
What is the Himachal law?
Laws in Himachal Pradesh limit the amount of land that outsiders can buy. However, there is not a complete ban on purchases for non-domiciles. There are provisions in the law that allow the buying of land in the hill state for specific purposes like residential, agricultural, commercial, or industrial.
The Bonafide (Domicile) Policy, 1972, of the state extends privileges to those residing in Himachal for up to 20 years. At the same time, Section 118 of the HP Tenancy and Land Reform Act, 1972, is in no way inhibiting investment, especially in industry, tourism, hydropower, and other sectors, reports Tribune.
The law was brought by Himachal’s first chief minister Dr YS Parmar to protect the scarce land from being purchased and exploited by wealthy outsiders, which would have rendered many residents landless.
What does Uttarakhand’s law say now?
Uttarakhand was carved out of Uttar Pradesh in 2000 and had laws similar to the parent state. In 2003, when ND Tiwari was the chief minister, he introduced an amendment that allowed outsiders to purchase agricultural land in Uttarakhand, but only up to a limit of 500 square metres.
Subsequent governments continued to bring changes to the land laws. In 2008, the BC Khanduri government reduced the threshold to 250 square metres.
In 2018, the land law was diluted by Trivendra Singh Rawat, who also added two clauses to it. These sections allowed any firm, group or individual to purchase agricultural land to set up industrial units in select non-agriculture sectors in Uttarakhand, ThePrint reports.
The limits on outsiders buying land in the state were completely done away with, in 2018, and collectors had the discretionary power to authorise the purchase of land, according to Kumar.
What next for Uttarakhand?
The committee recommending amendments to the laws believes that “a balance needs to be struck”. “We do not want people in the hills to become landless, but the investment is also needed for industrialisation and employment generation,” said Kumar.
“We had sought reports from all the district magistrates on the sale and purchase of land in their areas. Some reports have already arrived and the rest will come in a day or two. We hope to submit our recommendations to the state government on the matter in a week or ten days,” he told PTI.
Ajendra Ajay, a member of the committee, said that there have been instances where land was bought with the stated purpose of setting up a medical college, but a hotel was built instead. There has been large-scale buying of agricultural land by non-agriculturists from outside the state. “It must stop,” said Ajay, who had written to the chief minister last year alleging fast demographic changes in the hill areas of the state.
“Uttarakhand is a border state. We share borders with two countries (China and Nepal). It is also a state where major Hindu pilgrimage centres are located. The changing demography of the hills does not augur well for us,” he pointed out.
The amendments to the existing land laws are likely to be introduced later this year. The restrictions would be on hilly areas and the plains could be exempted, according to ThePrint report.
Do any other states have similar laws?
Jammu and Kashmir too had restrictive land laws, which have now been changed. In October 2020, the Government of India issued a notification stating that any Indian citizen can now buy land, except agricultural, in municipal areas of Jammu and Kashmir without being a domicile.
According to the Ministry of Home Affairs “will encourage development” in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. The move came after J&K’s special status under Article 370 of the Constitution was withdrawn on 5 August 2019. The reorganisation act bifurcated the state into two UTs – J&K and Ladakh. However, agricultural land cannot be sold or repurposed with permission from the government.
States in the northeast have restrictive laws. States under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution include Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Mizoram, and the areas under the Gorkha Hill Council, Darjeeling in West Bengal. Here restrictions are imposed on outsiders to purchase land. Autonomous Councils in each of the states have the sole right to regulate the sale and purchase of land.
In Sikkim, outsiders can buy land only to set up industrial units and Arunachal Pradesh also prohibits sale of land and property to outsiders and non-tribals. In Nagaland, land can only be brought by tribals who are residents of the state.
The Odisha Scheduled Areas Transfer of Immovable Property (by Scheduled Tribes) Regulations, (OSATIP) 1956, was amended in 2000. Under the changed rules, no tribal can transfer his land to a non-tribal or a tribal if he possessed less than two acres of irrigated land or less than five acres of non-irrigated land.
With inputs from agencies
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