On the other hand, fixed tenancy with payment in varieties of cash and kind is common in the irrigated villages in Sambalpur district (Sarap, 1998). Only about 20 percent of land-leasing households were found to participate in sharecropping _(bhagidi)_ contracts. They were small landowners and the primary reason for leasing-out land was their inability to cultivate land either with the help of family labour or by hired labour<sup>37</sup> . Land leasing on fixed tenancy is of two types: in kind _(kara),_ when the agreed amount of paddy is delivered after the harvest; and in cash _(chhidol)_ where the rent is paid up front in cash before the lessee is permitted to use the land. The _kara_ lessors tended to be small farmers with limited access to family and/or hired labour (army personnel, widows); or medium farmers with an adverse land-labour ratio. Among the _chhidol_ lessors, nearly half resided in other villages, and leased out their land because these plots were at a distant location and of inferior quality. The other _chhidol_ lessors were small farmers who required funds for urgent purposes. The rents paid by lessees varied from Rs. 120 to Rs. 550 per acre per year; this wide range in rents payable is indicative of the heterogeneous terms and conditions among such contracts.

Table 14 provides a typology of various land leasing contracts in different parts of Orissa, and Table 15 summarises the most common reasons for leasing land. It is evident that leasing households participate in the tenancy market in response to missing markets for labour or draught power.

# _4.4.2 Terms of tenancy contracts_

Tenants are under no obligation to lease-in land from a particular lessor. They are quite free to take their own decisions on how much land area to lease-in and from whom, and are not expected to provide unpaid labour to the lessor. However, it was commonly reported that tenants may borrow money from their landlords and repay the loan with labour contributions. While there is little evidence of extra-economic coercion in leasing contracts, it does appear that some factor markets may be interlinked. Unlike the situation that prevailed prior to Independence, tenants no longer appear to be locked into exploitative relationships with landlords. At the same time, they have no legal status because tenancy is banned.

In leasing out land, landowners employ various devices to get around the law banning tenancy. Most contracts are oral and of short duration. Oral contracts help to ensure that tenants are not recognised in the updated land records during survey and settlement operations (section 3.1). At the same time, short-term contracts (typically 2-5 years), prevent tenants from establishing claims to land through 'adverse possession'. Under the adverse possession rule, a tenant who has been in practical possession of a plot of land for a period of 12 consecutive years may thereby acquire legal occupancy rights to that land.

Rule 21 of the Orissa Survey and Settlement Rules, 1962, clearly specifies the particulars that need to be recorded in the preparation of the RORs. These include the name of each tenant or occupant; the class to which each tenant belongs; the situation and extent of the land held by each tenant or occupant; the name of the landlord of each tenant; and the name of each proprietor and landlord.

> 37 There is a close relationship between the two, since hired labour normally requires supervision by family members.

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