Surya Narayan Patro

Bhubaneswar, Oct. 8: The state government has decided to distribute input subsidy directly to the “actual cultivators” rather than landowners, apparently with an eye on the 2012 panchayat polls.

In order to identify the cultivators, the state government has decided to constitute committees at the village level. Revenue minister Surya Narayan Patro said: “It would be a tough task. However, the government would mobilise its machinery to identify the real cultivators. The opinion of the entire village will be solicited if needed. Our aim is to provide help to the real cultivators rather than landowners.”

Sources said this was a move in the direction of granting “land rights” to the actual cultivators in the future. “We are moving in that direction. But there is stiff official resistance to it. We are working hard to change the mindset of the officials. Once the officials’ mindset is changed, we will convince the chief minister to take a decision in this regard. It will be of immense benefit for the poor,” said a senior minister of the Naveen Patnaik cabinet.

However, Opposition chief whip Prasad Harichandan said there were bound to be confusions while identifying the real cultivators. “We have an archaic revenue law. There is no uniformity in it. Once you accept that someone is the actual cultivator, then the demand to give him land rights will arise.”

Harichandan also questioned the legal entity of the village committee that would identify the cultivators. Sources said the government had successfully implemented the scheme on a pilot basis in Ganjam district last year.

Last year the government had almost decided to confer legal status on the actual cultivator or sharecropper. The revenue minister had even announced to confer legal entity to the sharecroppers. However, when the landowners mounted pressure on him, Patro backtracked and said there was nothing called a sharecropper (bhag chassi) under the Orissa Land Reforms Act and there was no move to confer legal entity to sharecroppers. All these were media reports, he had maintained.

BJD insiders said if the government was successful in identifying the real cultivators, it would be a historic step and party would reap its benefits. In order to expedite the process, chief minister Naveen Patnaik today directed concerned officials to prepare a report on crop loss by the end of October.

The revenue minister said: “A committee comprising revenue and agriculture department officials will be constituted under the chairmanship of the district collector to prepare a report on crop loss. Each village would be taken as a unit for distribution of assistance under the Orissa Relief Code Act. The actual farmers will be getting subsidy from November 1.”

The government has also decided to provide one quintal of groundnut seeds and 10,000 quintal of black gram and moong seeds to the farmers. “We have decided to take the help of the National Seeds Corporation in this regard,” said a senior official of the revenue department. As far as flood compensation is concerned, special relief commissioner Pradipta Mohapatra made it clear that the tiller of the land and not the landowner would get the compensation.