enjoyed in practice. Security of tenure refers to the degree of confidence an individual has that his or her rights in land will be upheld in practice. Ownership and usufruct rights in land can be transferred or acquired through privately initiated land transactions in four ways: _Land sale,_ which is the permanent transfer of privately-held ownership and usufruct rights. Land sales are permitted so long as the purchaser's total land ownership holding does not exceed the ceiling limit; _Land inheritance,_ which normally occurs on the death of a land holder, and results in the partitioning of a privately owned land holding among two or more claimants. All rights are transferred to the claimants. This process also frequently leads to _landfragmentation_ which, owing to spatial variation in land quality, generally takes the form of the subdivision among each claimant of each individual plot in the total land holding. Administrative attempts are made to restrict land fragmentation in the interests of increasing or at least maintaining agricultural productivity; _Land encroachment,_ which refers to the forcible, _defacto_ 'privatisation' of common or government land. Although encroachment is illegal, the government also seeks to redistribute ownership rights over some public land ('wastelands') to landless households. This apparent entitlement is treated separately from the question of encroachment, however, so that it is not possible for a landless household to press a claim through a spontaneous act of encroachment; and _Land lease or tenancy,_ which,occurs when usufruct rights over a plot of land are transferred for a specified period and for a share in the output (share-cropping), or against a fixed (cash or kind) rent. Ownership rights remain with the original owner. The leasing of land is prohibited under Orissa law, though widely prevalent in concealed forms (oral contracts).

A principal function of land administration is to maintain an authoritative record of the status and fiscal obligations of cultivators, to protect their rights, and to avoid agrarian disputes. Land records in India were initially established by means of survey and settlement operations. Periodic, revisional surveys are undertaken every 25-30 years or so. All land transfers completed during the intervening period between survey and settlement operations are recorded at the time of the revisional survey and reflected in the updated record-ofrights (RORs) in land. With an increasing volume of land transactions, state governments have had to devise various mechanisms to respond to these transactions. Survey and settlement (section 3) is still undertaken in Orissa without being a response to any specific transaction.

Government's response to individual land transactions is conditioned by the existing legal framework. Thus, land sale transactions (section 4.1) are registered and the ROR updated through the regular process of mutation which, in principle, takes place as and when the transaction occurs. Land fragmentation (section 4.2) is perceived adversely to affect agricultural productivity. In response, the government implements a land consolidation program designed to reverse fragmentation through the redistribution of scattered plots into compact blocks without significantly affecting land distribution among individual land holders. Land records are also updated following a consolidation operation. The government's response to encroachment (section 4.3) is ambiguous as it ostensibly seeks to evict encroachers from common land, but is more lenient with respect to encroachment on revenue wastelands. At the same time, while landowners may be penalised and evicted for encroaching on wastelands, landless households are legally entitled to be settled on (i.e. acquire ownership rights over) that land. Land leasing (section 4.4) is not recognised by the Government of Orissa and, in spite of being widely prevalent, is largely concealed.

This study systematically analyses each type of land transaction and the government's responses to examine how the interplay between the two impinges upon access to land by the rural poor. The analytical framework is depicted in Figure 1.

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