From Cultivators to Owners: Closing Punjab’s Long-Pending Chapter of Land Reforms

Long-Standing Occupants in Punjab Still Wait for Proprietary Rights In spite of the 2023.

KBS Sidhu

Long-Standing Occupants in Punjab Still Wait for Proprietary Rights

Punjab, including the erstwhile PEPSU state, has often been at the forefront of agrarian reform. The great tenancy laws of the early 1950s—the Punjab Occupancy Tenants Acts of 1952 and 1954—gave thousands of cultivators proprietary rights, transforming the rural landscape. But the story remained incomplete. A large class of small farmers, particularly in the riverine tracts where marginal communities such as the Rai Sikhs had settled, never made it into the ownership column of the jamabandi. They were recognised in revenue records with status such as panahi kadim—refugees or occupants of long standing—but the ownership vested elsewhere.

For decades they tilled, improved, and passed these parcels down generations, but without legal title they could not mortgage/ pledge for institutional loans, sell, or even access disaster relief. They were owners for all intents and purposes, but not in law.

The long gestation of a reform

The demand to end this anomaly gathered pace over the years. The proposal originated in the Punjab Revenue Department and, during my first tenure as Financial Commissioner (Revenue) in 2016–17, it was referred to the Punjab Revenue Commission under Justice (Retd.) S.S. Saron, former Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court, for a comprehensive draft. The Commission’s task was not simply to draft a Bill but to reconcile decades of piecemeal tenancy law with contemporary realities.

The result was The Punjab Bhondedar, Butemar, Dohlidar, Insar Miadi, Mukarraridar, Mundhimar, Panahi Qadeem, Saunjidar, or Taraddadkar (Vesting of Proprietary Rights) Bill, 2020. It aimed to cover precisely those quasi-permanent occupants who had been excluded from earlier reforms. The principle was straightforward: if a cultivator had been recorded in one of these categories for at least twenty years before 1 January 2020, they would be deemed the owner.

The Bill moved through the Legislature with due application of mind. The Punjab Cabinet approved it on 14 October 2020. The Vidhan Sabha passed it on 21 October 2020. Presidential assent followed on 13 January 2023, when it was notified as Punjab Act No. 1 of 2023. In October 2024, the Cabinet cleared the accompanying Rules, paving the way for operationalisation.

The proposal on paper

The figures speak for themselves. According to the Government’s own briefings, 11,231 cultivators spread over about 4,196 acres stood to benefit. These were not large landlords or speculative investors but smallholders, many from disadvantaged communities, who had remained outside the sweep of land reforms for over seventy years.

The Act was deliberately cast as an agrarian reform statute under Article 31-A of the Constitution, which shields it from legal challenges under the right to property. Compensation was built into the framework: applicants were required to deposit an amount, in the manner prescribed by the Rules, which would then be passed on to the erstwhile owner through the Collector. The structure avoided ambiguity.

A parallel track: the Punjab Allotment of State Government Land Act, 2016

Enacted on 24 December 2016, the Punjab Allotment of State Government Land Act, 2016 (Act 54 of 2016) creates a pathway for occupants in continuous cultivating possession for more than 20 years to secure title to rural agricultural land belonging to the State Government (explicitly excluding evacuee, nazool, surplus, shamlat, and mushtarka malkan lands). The price is pegged to the Collector rate with concessional slabs: up to 2 acres at Collector rate minus 50%, 2–4 acres at Collector rate minus 25%, and 4–5 acres at the Collector rate. Payment is staged—25% at Letter of Intent, with the balance in ten interest-free six-monthly instalments (12% interest only on delays). A conditional conveyance deed issues on the 25% deposit, coupled with a 10-year bar on alienation; an unconditional deed follows after ten years, subject to full payment and no unauthorised transfer. The competent authority proceeds on application, enquiry, public notice, and provides appeal and revision remedies; rules may be framed by notification.

On implementation, formal district-wise data is not centrally published, and there is no public dashboard of allotments under the 2016 framework; subsequent legislation—the Punjab (Welfare and Settlement of Landless, Marginal and Small Occupant Farmers) Allotment of State Government Land Act, 2020 (Punjab Act 1 of 2021)—created a parallel/updated route for 10+ years’ cultivating possession but likewise lacks consolidated public reporting, suggesting uneven progress despite clear statutory design.

What has actually happened?

And yet, despite this long process and the careful design, not much has happened on the ground. Beyond the broad figures quoted at the time of Presidential assent, there is no reliable evidence of large-scale conferment of proprietary rights. District collectors have not reported any surge of orders, nor have mutations appeared in the jamabandi columns.

The reasons are familiar to anyone who has worked in revenue administration. Verifying twenty years of continuous occupation through fragmented records is painstaking. Field officers have awaited clear, simple slabs of compensation. Without a centralised dashboard of applications and conferments, accountability has been diffuse. The result is that long-standing occupants remain in precisely the limbo the law was designed to end.

This is the paradox: Punjab has completed the law-making but not the title-giving.

Why compensation must be minimal

At the heart of the delay lies the issue of compensation. The Act leaves the “sum and manner” to the Rules, and while the Rules have now been approved, the Government has the discretion to fix the slabs. It is vital that these are kept as low as possible.

There is both a moral and a practical case for minimal compensation. The moral case is that these cultivators have already paid their dues through generations of occupation without legal security. They are not seizing land but consolidating what they have long possessed. The practical case is that high slabs will deter applications, prolong disputes, and keep land titles in limbo. A nominal, affordable sum will expedite conferments and reduce litigation.

A way forward

The solution is not more committees but decisive execution. Several steps can be taken immediately to secure the implementation of the above three laws:

First, fix compensation at the lowest viable level. Make it simple, uniform, and payable in instalments. A per-acre or per-kanal slab, affordable to marginal farmers, will break the logjam.

Second, adopt a “deposit and decide” model. Once an occupant deposits the prescribed amount and meets the basic eligibility check, the Collector should issue the conferment order within sixty days. Any challenge by the prior owner can be taken up later, confined to the quantum of compensation.

Third, run district-level ownership camps. In riverine belts and settlements where these categories cluster, single-window camps should combine document verification, deposit acceptance, and draft conferment orders.

Fourth, digitise the process. Conferment orders should flow directly into the PLRS/Jamabandi portal, updating the ownership column in real time. Banks can then lend against the new titles.

Fifth, monitor progress publicly. A simple dashboard showing applications received, orders issued, compensation transferred, and mutations done will keep the system accountable.

Sixth, ease evidentiary rules. Allow affidavits from neighbours, panchayat resolutions, and digitised jamabandi extracts to bridge small gaps in the record, without letting documentary imperfections defeat genuine cases.

Finally, consider a short moratorium on distress sales, combined with access to institutional credit, so that beneficiaries do not lose their newly acquired titles to moneylenders.

The case for urgency

These reforms have been in the making for decades. They were initiated in the Revenue Department, refined by the Commission, debated in Cabinet, passed by the Vidhan Sabha, assented to by the President, and given Rules by the Cabinet. Every institutional check has been applied. The beneficiaries are small farmers, often from historically marginalised groups. The law is constitutionally secure. All that remains is to implement it.

The longer the delay, the more it mocks the very idea of reform. Land reform is not about drafting statutes; it is about putting ownership in the hands of those who till the soil. Punjab cannot afford another unfinished chapter or inchoate attempt.

Towards the Final Lap

The unfinished business of Punjab’s land reforms can be brought to closure with one bold administrative stroke: confer proprietary rights swiftly, at minimal cost, and with maximum transparency. The Legislature has done its duty, the Union has given assent, and the Cabinet has framed the Rules. Now the task lies with the State’s revenue machinery, under the oversight of the political executive.

If Punjab can move thousands of names from the cultivation column to the ownership column of the jamabandi, it will have done more than correct a historical wrong. It will have given dignity, security, and economic opportunity to families who have earned it through generations of toil. Justice in this case does not lie in drafting yet another law; it lies in implementing the one that already exists. And, we are not even talking of political dividends.