THE 1961 Land Ceiling Act was notified on October 2, 1962, but came into force with retrospective effect from April 6, 1960. Under its provisions, a family comprising not more than five members can hold land up to 30 standard acres. (The `standard acre' ranges from 0.32 ha (0.8 acre) to 1.62 ha (4 acres) depending on the nature of the land, that is, whether it was wetland or dryland and its location.)
In the case of families comprising more than five members, each additional member was allowed to hold five standard acres, subject to the condition that the maximum limit for the family will be 24.28 ha (60 standard acres). The ceiling was lowered to 6.07 ha (15 standard acres) for a family by the Tamil Nadu Land Reforms (Reduction of Ceiling on Land Holdings) (Amendment) Act, 1970. The overall ceiling limit for a family comprising more than five members was reduced first to 16.19 ha (40 standard acres) and then to 12.14 ha (30 standard acres) through two successive amendments in 1972.
The Act even at the outset made it clear that it would not apply to the land held by religious institutions or religious trusts of public nature existing then. It exempted the following institutions from the purview of its provisions: land held by Central and State governments; land held by any university; land held by any commercial undertaking; all plantations in existence on the date of the commencement of this Act; land converted on or before the first day of July 1959 into orchards or groves or arecanut gardens; any land used for growing trees for fuel wood on the date of the commencement of this Act; Gramdaan land and land donated for the purpose of the bhoodan yagna; land awarded for gallantry to defence personnel, and any land assigned by the government to and held by a land colonisation co-operative society.
For the redistribution of the ceiling-surplus land, the Act gave a list of beneficiaries to be given priority - tenants who were cultivating the land on the date of commencement of the Act, landless agricultural labourers belonging to the Scheduled Caste (S.C.) or Scheduled Tribe (S.T.) sections and to a co-operative farming society. The assignment is made on certain conditions. Each assignee is given land at the rate not exceeding 1.21 ha (3 acres) of dryland or 0.6 ha (1.5 acres) of wetland.
The Policy Note-2004-2005 of the Revenue Department of the State government revealed that of the 82,756.1 ha (2,04,495 acres) of land notified as surplus, 74,844.59 ha (1,84,945 acres) had been assigned to 1,84,945 persons, claimed as "landless poor". Of the remaining 7,891.37 ha (19,500 acres) left unassigned so far, 3,505.79 ha (8,663 acres) of land was covered by stay granted by various courts. After deducting 4,405.81 ha (10,887 acres) allotted for public purposes under Rule 13 of the Tamil Nadu Land Reforms (Disposal of Surplus Land) Rules, 1965, the extent of land that remained to be assigned was only 284 ha (702 acres), according to the note.
A statement on the land declared surplus, land assigned and the number of beneficiaries from 1961 to March 31, 2004, shows that in the first decade of the Act (1961-1970), only 7,700.35 ha (19,028 acres) have been declared surplus, of which 5,695.54 ha (14,074 acres) have gone to 7,978 beneficiaries.
During the next decade, perhaps after the lowering of the ceiling through amendments to the Act, of the 43,759.46 ha (1,08,132 acres) declared surplus, 28,623.41 ha (70,730 acres) were assigned to 51,244 beneficiaries. The government has taken four decades to take the process close to its end.
Of the total 74,844.58 ha (1,84,945 acres) of surplus land assigned to 1,46,673 persons so far, 28,224 ha (69,743 acres) have gone to 65,098 persons belonging to the S.C. category, 111.3 ha (275 acres) to 205 persons belonging to the S.T. category and 46,509 lakh ha (1,14,927 lakh acres) to 81,270 persons belonging to "Others".
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