advantage. The draft Orissa Revenue Administration Bill is intended to simplify, consolidate and replace the various laws that currently govern land administration. However, the extent to which legislative and organizational improvements in land administration will enhance access to land for the rural poor, depends to a large extent on the degree of transparency with which land administration is conducted in practice. Access to information and public awareness of rights appear to be critical factors. The recent initiative of the Revenue Department, Government of Orissa, to disseminate a local-language 'how to' manual on matters of land transfers and access to land records, is a most welcome contribution in this area, and one from which other states could learn.

- _Land consolidation:_ the involvement of local NGOs in the formation of village committees for land consolidation may help to overcome some of the resistance to consolidation, where consolidation is genuinely demanded by particular villages, but where the government-initiated process is perceived to be insufficiently participatory. NGOs could be encouraged to undertake mass-awareness generation by using informal media techniques (puppetry, folk theatre, etc.) and create a basis for negotiated and participatory land consolidation at village level. The government's role would be confined to the correction of existing land records, demarcation of common lands, assistance in land measurement, and preparation of the new set of land records. To the extent that both poorer and better-off farmers wish voluntarily to consolidate their holdings in the interests of raising productivity, the most effective public interventions are likely to be those that reduce transaction costs in the land market.

- **_E_** _ncroachment:_ the most promising avenues for protecting rights of access to common land for the rural poor are through efforts to raise public awareness and access to information. Some NGOs in Orissa have been successful in pursuing public interest litigation to defend tribal land rights. Following their lead, the strengthening of local panchayats could make a vital contribution towards promoting the watchdog function of civil society institutions. Only with strong civil society institutions will there be effective demand from below for accountability within the lower levels of land revenue administration, thereby limiting the possibilities for evasion of the legislation designed to prevent encroachment on commons. With such safeguards in place, the computerization of land records at tehsil level would also contribute towards making information on the extent of encroachment more publicly accessible.

- _Tenancy:_ liberalization of the land-lease market, as proposed in the draft Orissa Revenue Administration Bill, and supported by Government of India policy under the Ninth Plan, is therefore cautiously to be welcomed, provided that the right balance can be struck between assuring landlords of their long-term ownership rights, and assuring tenants of their security of tenure and protection under the law for the duration of fixed-term tenancy contracts. Only with documentary evidence of such rights are tenants likely to face the possibility of access to institutional credit. The government's role would not be to specify the class of cultivators who may lease out their land, or to set a 'fair' rent as under the Orissa Land Reforms Act, but to ensure that contracts are upheld.

- _Other market-based approaches to increasing access to land by the poor:_ learning from experience that land encroachment and tenancy, in spite of being banned, are widespread, the government might consider additional, market-based mechanisms to increase access of land to the rural poor. For example, a fixed proportion, say 50 percent, of the revenue wastelands should be auctioned for a limited, fixed period, for agricultural purposes. If at the same time, tenancy is deregulated, large landowners may be willing to take land on auction and lease-out to the small and marginal farmers for cultivation. This would increase not only the poor's access to land but

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