Land survey in Bihar likely to have significant impact on Assembly election due next year

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is looking to make maximum benefit out of the survey

With next year’s Bihar Assembly election in mind, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has started a land survey in the State as he has directed the Revenue and Land Reforms department to complete the huge exercise by July 2025 just a few months ahead of polling.

It is being conducted at a massive scale with the motive to digitise the land records of around 45,000 villages in the State. It is believed that Mr. Kumar is going ahead with the survey as 60% of murder cases registered at police stations are related to land disputes according to a report of the State Crime Records Bureau (SCRB), 2023.

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Mr. Kumar had categorically said that the survey must be completed before next year’s election and for that the State government has appointed nearly 10,000 officials as Special Survey Assistant Settlement Officers (SSASO).

Disputes relating to land pending before different forums in Bihar are huge in number and the present machinery including civil courts is already overburdened because of a massive pendency of cases regarding land disputes. The State government is faced with complexities arising out of the delay in the settlement of disputes related to right, title and possession of land.

Among political circles, Mr. Kumar’s decision is being seen as a strategic move since the survey is being carried out after more than 100 years as the last such exercise was conducted in 1910. Since then, no government in Bihar has undertaken a land survey owing to the tedious work and sensitive nature of land rights in a largely agrarian State.

“Our leader has accepted the biggest challenge, which no one dared to do. Conducting a land survey in a State like Bihar where people are killed just for roaming on other’s land is not a cakewalk. He has already taken several bold decisions like liquor ban and caste-based survey. If the land survey is conducted before the Assembly election, we are sure of getting maximum benefit because all sections and castes are affected by this. The government will take the possession of illegal land encroached by others and second, the people will get the benefit once their land would be declared legal and genuine with documents in their hand,” a senior Janata Dal (United) leader close to Mr. Kumar told The Hindu on the condition of anonymity.

The JD(U) leader further said that cost of land would also increase once the documentation process of the land is completed. Under the present situation, the land is transferred to the next generation without any document work.

The government’s decision is facing backlash from Opposition parties as Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav has raised questions on the difficulties being faced by the people with regard to verifying the land-related documents. Buxar MP and Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Sudhakar Singh recently shared a video clip purportedly showing a government official taking bribe at a circle office (CO) in lieu of verification of the documents.

JD(U) ally Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), on the other hand, is facing the heat of the land survey because their membership drive is badly affected. A party official said that ever since the drive has started, it has managed to induct five lakh members whereas in a State like Assam it has brought in more than 22 lakh people.

One of the reasons cited for the low membership intake is because people in villages are busy with verifying the documents and are not overtly concerned about the membership drive.

When the decision was announced, there was panic among the people with regard to the deadline to submit the self-declaration either online or offline to join the process. However, last week, Revenue and Land Reforms Minister Dilip Kumar Jaiswal, who also serves as the BJP State president, said that there was no fixed dateline to submit the documents.

One major issue that has faced friction during the land survey is decoding the old land documents, which are written in Kaithi script and its readers are few in the State. The Minister said that on an average, around seven to eight documents written in this script have been found in every district.

Published - September 19, 2024 04:00 am IST