With land becoming a scarce commodity and also being a key factor in several scams, the Centre is considering setting up “public land banks” at the panchayat level.
The Land Bank, mooted in the 12th Five-Year Plan (2012-17), will work on the lines of normal banks, where instead of currency and financial instruments people will transact in land by depositing and withdrawing pledged land parcels.
The working group which drew up the 12th Plan document envisaged the Land Bank could be given “initial seed capital from the Centre and state governments in a 80:20 ratio.
It also suggested that at the pilot stage, for three years, the Centre could provide 100 per cent of seed capital.
The report, a copy of which is with this newspaper, says: “To regulate and rationalise land demand and supply, it is strongly recommended that a PLB be created at the panchayat level, in which land owners can ‘deposit’ land parcels they do not want to cultivate.”
The report said the “period of deposit” could range from “one season to several years”, and depositors could receive “an incentive payment per hectare” on deposit, varying by “period of deposit (analogous to current, savings and fixed bank deposits), with an additional amount being paid if the land gets leased out”. It also says landowners would get “guaranteed protection and would be free to withdraw the land with due notice”.
Later, to earn value on the land deposited, it is proposed that the PLB will in turn lease out the land in its possession to specifically designated categories of disadvantaged cultivators, such as marginal farmers, women, dalits and tribals.