One look and you can tell that Sanjeev Kumar, 52, a native of Bihar’s Malinagar village is a much harassed and disoriented man. Sweating profusely, he is moving in the sweltering heat at the Kalyanpur block headquarters in Samastipur district.
“I have no khatiyan (record of right) of our land, which is in the name of my grandfather. I work in Patna and have been running from there to my village, block office, district headquarters. My relatives have usurped not only the khatiyans but all other documents related to our land. I am trying to get something from the block office here, but the people here are demanding a hefty amount for it. I don’t know what to do,” he told The Telegraph.
Sanjeev is not alone. There are hundreds of people like him milling around helplessly to procure some document that would prove their ownership of land.
Welcome to the Bihar Land Survey!
It has just started across the state with the aim of streamlining the land records but has started generating much tension, triggering conflicts, and even leading to murders in the rural areas.
The situation could escalate leading to socio-political upheaval as a large number of people have started complaining about its process, widespread corruption, and the problems they are facing.
Sample these problems and scenarios that are cropping up everywhere in the state:
- The land is in the name of great grandfather and was divided orally among the successors. Some of them sold their shares. The sellersare now trying to reclaim the land. What will happen to the land with the remaining shareholders and also those who bought it?
- A large number of people exchanged their agricultural land with others in their villages or neighbouring villages several decades ago for ease of visiting the plots and cultivation, without caring about paperwork. Many of such plots were sold in the coming decades by those who were cultivating on it.
- Land was verbally sold a couple of generations ago but was not registered at the government offices. There are also thousands of cases in which land was sold and registered long ago, but mutation was never done. In both scenarios, the ownership still rests with the sellers, who are long gone and their sons and grandsons are now refusing to accept the word of their forefathers.
- The division of property was never officially registered but the survey demands it. The people are racking their brains on how to get it done, especially when some of the land has been sold to others.
- Though the government fee for officially registering the property division in families is just ₹100, the middlemen active at the circle offices are demanding a large amount of money in the current situation to feed on the worry of the people.
- The survey demands vanshavali or genealogical trees to arrive at the land ownership, but traditionally the daughters were not given a share in the ancestral property. However, the situation has changed now and the women have also started demanding their share in the property of their fathers and forefathers. This is leading to bad blood and court cases in families.
- While the government has put in place an internet-based online system to facilitate various requirements of the survey, it is a fact that a large number of farmers in the state are not versed with web-based applications and would not benefit from them.
- The marginal farmers or people possessing just a small plot of land, who double up as farm labourers are the hardest hit as they have neither ownership documents, nor the wherewithal to grease the palms of officials to obtain them.
- Several hundred people are converging daily at district and block headquarters to get copies of khatiyans and other land-related documents. The offices are unable to cope with the rush and would take several months to dispose of the applications. The police have been deployed to maintain law and order at such places.
- A large number of people from Bihar are staying in different parts of the country and the world as migrant workers. They are unable to be present in their villages for the survey in person when needed.
No system to address grievances
The revenue and land reforms department has entrusted the survey work to around 14,000 people who would take care of it in over 45,000 revenue villages in the state.
Village-level meetings have been held in which the concerned officials have explained the requirements of the survey, however, there is no grievance redressal system in place for such an important and extensive work undertaken by the government.
“At present, there are no designated telephone numbers or interactive voice response system (IVRS) to address the survey-related grievances or complaints of the people,” revenue and land reforms department additional chief secretary Dipak Kumar Singh told this newspaper.
Singh added that having dedicated phone numbers to address survey-related problems was a “good suggestion” and the department would “think about having it in place”.
Political opposition
The Opposition parties and their leaders have already noticed the chaos in the villages due to the survey and have started listening to the problems being faced by the common people due to it.
“There is a need to simplify the survey further and make it easier for the people. Special attention should be paid to the issues faced by the people and simplify the rules. The situation will become very dangerous if timely action is not taken in this regard. We are already getting complaints from our workers about corruption by officials connected to the survey,” Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, who also happens to be the leader of the Opposition in the Bihar Legislative Assembly, said.
Poll consultant–turned–politician Prashant Kishor, currently spearheading the Jan Suraaj (public good governance) campaign in Bihar as a prelude to establishing a political party, also slammed chief minister Nitish Kumar-led state government over the land survey.
“There is an extensive public anger against the land survey in the state. The way it is being done, it will lead to conflict over land ownership in every family, house, village and panchayat. The survey has been started without any preparation and arrangement of resources for it,” Kishor said.
He pointed out that land records were recently digitised in the state in a hurried manner by private agencies, in which land of one person has been put in the name of another due to the haste.
“This has already led to mayhem in the villages, and now this survey is going to become the foremost reason for land-related disputes in the state in the coming days,” Kishor said.
The ruling parties are also worried and distraught about the survey as the public resentment might turn against them in the 2025 Assembly election in the state.
“Our top leaders should reconsider the survey, especially when the Assembly polls are due next year. If the problems and public anger escalate then the entire NDA (National Democratic Alliance) would be wiped out,” a senior JDU minister confided to this newspaper.
However, revenue and land reforms minister and Bihar BJP president Dilip Kumar Jaiswal has rejected speculations about the government halting the survey.
“These are rumours being spread by land mafia, wrongdoers and the people having vested interests against the survey. The survey will go on. The government is addressing the difficulties being faced by the people,” Jaiswal said.
Rise in crime
The ongoing land survey resulted in violent disputes and killings at several places in Bihar, as the greed for property overshadows family relations.
One Kamlesh Rai was shot dead while his brother Manoranjan Rai was seriously injured allegedly by their cousin Priyanshu Rai in Piro in Bhojpur district in a land dispute expedited by the survey.
A woman and a man were killed in two separate incidents in Siwan district in land disputes, while three people were killed in different land-related fights in Jehanabad district earlier this week.
Rise in land dispute cases
There is a spurt in FIRs in connection with land disputes across over a thousand police stations in Bihar, especially due to the people rushing to capture the land that they believe to be theirs. Those who have clandestinely bought and sold land belonging to others are also party to several FIRs.
Moreover, the district courts are witnessing a rise in the number of land-related cases being filed.
“I am witnessing around 100 land-related cases being filed daily within my jurisdiction. My conjecture is that the land survey has triggered and expedited them. If the trend continues, it will clog the entire judicial system up to the high court. We have witnessed such a scenario in the ill-conceived prohibition laws brought by the state government,” a district judge of a central Bihar district told this newspaper on the condition of anonymity.