Access to Land for the Poor in Odisha (1947- 2011) - An Overview

One of the major objectives of Land reforms programme in the country after independence was to redistribute the land wealth so as to provide social justice to a large chunk of agricultural population especially the poor and the landless. Redistributive land reform measures are indeed effective means to provide access to productive resources mainly land to social classes and groups that traditionally lack access to land. In a predominantly agrarian state like Odisha endemic poverty among the rural populace is visibly linked with their lack of access to land. Hence access to and control over land resources hold the key to poverty alleviation and economic development of the agrarian population. Under the prodding of the Planning Commission and with the overall objective of reducing poverty, raising agricultural productivity and promoting social inclusion the Government of Odisha has adopted a number of measures to improve the access of the poor and socially excluded groups to land. Though the government has distributed 1, 53,114 acres of ceiling surplus land, 5, 79,984 acres of bhoodan land and 7, 26,629 acres of waste land among the landless families by 2005 to improve Poor's access to land the incidence of poverty has not shown any significant decline in the state but the proportion has declined from 66.18 in 1973-74 to 46.40 in 2004-05.