**5.** CONCLUSION

# **5.1 Policy implications**

A number of implications for policy are suggested by this analysis. Many, but not all, of these options are already being considered, or imp'e'~mented in pilot forms by the Government of Orissa. A number of these initiatives are also expected to be of relevance to other states:

- **_Gender and land rights:_** women's access to and effective control over land may be enhanced through joint land titling. This measure is rather limited in scope, since ideally what need to be promoted are women's independent land rights. But while the principle of joint titling is readily accepted at the level of the Government of India, it has yet to be realized in practice in Orissa. In focus group discussions, village women assert that their bargaining power vis a vis their husbands and in-laws would be enhanced considerably by joint title over land. The common objection that this may make it more difficult for women to escape from abusive marriages was for them a second order consideration.

- **_Organization_** _of_ **_land administration:_** a critical assessment of the respective roles and responsibilities of the Department of Revenue and the Board of Revenue appears warranted, in order to identify overlapping functions and areas where coordination between the two could be streamlined for increased efficiency. In the context of the ongoing computerization of land records, it will also be important critically to assess the particular responsibilities of the local-level Revenue Inspector. Many of the presumed advantages of computerization will not be realized unless limiting constraints on RIs' time and the incentive structure within which they work are addressed.

- **_Land_** _records_ **_and registration:_** at present, there is little or no coordination between the maintenance of land records, which is the responsibility of revenue inspectors and tehsildars; and land registration, which is the responsibility of sub-registrars. Measures to coordinate and integrate these two services and enhance their efficiency through computerization promise to go a long way towards stimulating the land market. Of utmost importance is to combine registration and mutation processes, and provide a 'single-window' facility for the registration of sale deeds, correction of the record of rights in land, and issue of land title. Land records and the registration administration system should integrated through a computer network to facilitate information exchange for this single-window approach. This should help to reduce the currently high, informal transaction costs to individuals in the land market. Existing registration fees and stamp duties should also be reassessed, as it is possible that their reduction, hand in hand with proper valuation, could lead to a net increase in state revenue.

- **_Survey and_** _settlement_ **_operations:_** in the context of the computerization of land records, the continuing relevance of survey and settlement operations is questionable. There is substantial evidence that survey and settlement operations discriminate systematically against the rural poor and socially excluded, whose interests would be far better served by an efficient service for registration of land sales, mutation and issuance of title.

- _Simplification_ **_and_** _transparency_ **_in_** _land_ **_administration:_** Many of the individual stages involved in land administration currently operate to the disadvantage of the rural poor and socially excluded groups. The complexity of the existing legal framework and a perverse incentive structure provides considerable scope for rent-seeking by the lower-level government officers with whom landholders come into direct contact, while village elites are better able to manipulate the system to their own

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