On the whole, land reform legislation has had only limited success in Orissa. Weak land revenue administration and lack of up-to-date land records were important contributory factors. At the same time, various provisions of different Acts were challenged in the Courts because of a number of shortcomings in the law. Often this required amendments to the original Acts and further delayed their implementation.

Abolition of intermediaries, which was achieved relatively easily in other states, was not completed in Orissa until 1974 owing to the absence of reliable records. Finally, a 'blanket notification' had to be issued by administrative fiat. More than 6000 cases relating to abolition of intcrmediaries are still pending in the Orissa High Court<sup>4</sup> .

The initial ceiling on land ownership, fixed at 33 standard acres<sup>5</sup> , was set at a high level and enabled intermediaries to evict tenants. By the time it was reduced to 10 standard acres in 1972, large landowners had had sufficient opportunity to escape the ceiling limit by 'transferring' the surplus land in the name of relatives even while they maintained _defacto_ control.

As in other states, the implementation of tenancy reforms has generally been weak, non-existent or counterproductive, resulting in the eviction of tenants, their rotation among landlords' plots to prevent them acquiring occupancy rights, and a general worsening of their tenure security (Appu 1997). Even though the Orissa Land Reforms (Amendment) Act, 1965 and its subsequent amendments in 1973 and 1974 conferred full ownership rights to tenants on land in their possession, tenants do not enjoy security of tenure as it is difficult in practice for them to establish their ownership rights. This is in spite of the strict provisions under the Orissa Survey and Settlement Act, 1958 to record names of tenants who are the actual cultivators.

The legislative ban on leasing has led to concealed tenancy arrangements that have tended to be even more informal, shorter (increasingly seasonal), and less secure than they had been prior to reform. The provision of the maximum rent is easily flouted, and various government reports and village studies have recorded the rent paid by tenants across the state to be twice the stipulated amount. Issues relating to tenancy are analysed in Section 4.4.

Even the relatively minor pieces of legislation designed to ensure effective revenue administration have not been very successful. In the face of customary inheritance laws, thin land markets, and widespread variation in land quality, the OCH&PFL Act has failed to achieve both its objectives of consolidating holdings and preventing fragmentation (Section 4.2). At the same time, increasing pressure on land combined with distorted incentives has served to undermine the basic provisions of the OPLE Act (Section 4.3).

The Govemment of Orissa has recently prepared a draft Revenue Administration Bill, intended to simplify, consolidate and replace these separate laws governing land administration. The proposed provisions permitting

- 4 Member, Board of Revenue, personal comm.

- 5 A standard acre is defined as 1 acre of Class I land, 1.5 acres of Class Il land, 3 acres of Class III land, and 4.5 acres of Class IV land. Class I land has perennial irrigation on which two or more crops can be grown, whereas Class II land is also irrigated but cannot yield more than a single crop in a year. Class III land is unirrigated but on which paddy can be grown, and Class IV land is any other land.

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