purchases. Uncertainty regarding the true ownership of the land is rarely a serious concern in the case of intra-village transactions. However, many sale-purchase transactions go unrecorded in land records, since the process of mutation (voluntary registration of a sale deed and acquisition of title) is complex, lengthy and expensive. Officially sanctioned transaction costs amount to at least 17 percent of the value of the land transacted, and the 'informal' transaction costs required to expedite the process may amount to as much again, even discounting the opportunity costs of repeated visits to registrar and tehsildar's offices over a period of several years. The computerization of land records may contribute to a reduction in these transaction costs, but only if coordinated with computerized land registration.

_Landfragmentation:_ the fragmentation of land holdings into tiny, scattered plots is a consequence of the custom of partible inheritance, in which each individual plot is subdivided among various heirs. There is thus a lifecycle effect, in which newly formed households acquire very small holdings on the subdivision of formerly joint family holdings. Land fragmentation is widely perceived to operate as a brake on agricultural productivity, and the Government of Orissa has responded by implementing a land consolidation program since 1974. Land consolidation does not contribute directly to improving access to land for the rural poor, since it aims to leave land distribution unchanged. But as in the case of survey and settlement operations, there is some evidence that land consolidation operations result in a certain amount of discrimination against the rural poor and other socially excluded groups. In spite of continuing demographic pressure, the rate of fragmentation actually declined from an average of 6.4 to 5.0 parcels per holding between 1961-62 and 198182. Much of this decline took place before the impact of the land consolidation program could be observed, which suggests that a certain amount of individually initiated land consolidation takes place through the voluntary exchange of land plots in the market.

Evidence from the field confirms that land fragmentation persists for two main reasons: the need to spread risk, particularly in unirrigated areas and where soil quality is more variable; and the need to hold land as a liquid asset, which may be sold off in discrete parcels to meet contingencies such as marriage or funeral costs. No data exist in Orissa on the rate of fragmentation by district or region. Findings from the field suggest that land fragmentation is perceived by farmers to be a more serious problem on the coastal plains, where land is more reliably watered and soils are more uniform in quality, than in the hill areas of western Orissa, where there has been considerable resistance to the government's land consolidation program. 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.

_Encroachment on comnons:_ The rural poor partially compensate for their lack of access to private, arable land through access to public/ common land. Commons account for an estimated 20 percent of the total land area of Orissa, including 'wastelands', grazing lands, and certain types of forest land. Over recent decades, the best quality common land has been encroached upon by both resource-poor and resource-rich farmers, and what remains is frequently too degraded to be of significant value. Legislation exists to prevent encroachment on government-owned 'wastelands', and to transfer a up to an acre of 'unobjectionable' public land to landless families, but is largely ineffective on both counts. There are powerful incentives for revenue inspectors to take bribes from encroachers to permit continued cultivation, rather than to initiate eviction proceedings. More powerful individuals may thereby acquire permanent occupancy rights through 'adverse possession'. While the rural poor also acquire _defacto_ but insecure rights over revenue wastelands through encroachment, they are often unable to convert them to the _de jure_ rights to which they are legally entitled, since the act of encroachment is regarded as illegal in the first instance. Access to commons is especially important in the livelihoods of the 22 percent of Orissa's total population who live in 'scheduled' tribal areas. In spite of legal restrictions on transfers of land owned by people of scheduled tribes to non-tribal people, land alienation from indebted tribal families remains a persistent problem.

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