Land-related transaction costs are onerous for all, but are often prohibitive for the poor. They are a serious obstacle to better access to land for the rural poor and socially excluded. The companion study in Orissa includes an empirical assessment of the formal and informal transaction costs involved in the land market (Mearns and Sinha 1998). While formal transaction costs (e.g. registration fees and stamp duties) amount to around 17 percent of the value of the land transacted, it is estimated that informal transaction costs (e.g. making repeated visits to tehsildar's and registrar's offices, side-payments to expedite issuance of relevant documents, etc) amount to at least as much again, without taking into account the time and other opportunity costs involved. The process of effecting a mutation in land records frequently takes a decade or longer.

The case for improving the system of land administration and records management so as to reduce land transaction costs appears strong. It is strengthened yet further by the trends discussed in this paper: demographic pressure; rising activity in land markets owing to social and economic mobility; latent pressure for further growth in market activity; and increasing demand from landless, marginal and small operators to lease-in land. The potential advantages to both buyers and sellers of land include simpler, cheaper and more secure conveyancing procedures; better access to affordable, institutional credit (Brandao and Feder 1996); and less litigation. State governments also stand to gain from reduced litigation and from more accurate records of rights in land as a basis for planning, for the implementation of land reforms legislation where appropriate, and to help in preventing encroachment on public land.

Several types of improvement in land records management and land administration are possible, including the computerization of land records and land registration (and the integration of the two), and institutional reforms in land settlement and adjudication. Some of these are considered in greater detail in the Orissa study (Mearns and Sinha 1998). A One-Man Committee on Records of Rights in Land under the Indian Planning Commission has proposed that a pilot land title registration program be established in one or two districts of selected states, beginning with areas in which revisional surveys have recently been conducted and in which records of rights in land are therefore more up-to-date (Wadhwa 1989). This proposal has met with widespread written support from leading judges, Chief Justices, academic and practicing lawyers, former ministers of finance, revenue, and urban development, planning commissioners, and managing directors of housing and urban development corporations<sup>3</sup> '. The major components of such a pilot program would include the amendment of legislation, provision for a responsible public agency, and appropriate institutional strengthening. Other types of legal reform may need to be considered as preconditions, particularly where legislative restrictions on land transactions are unusually cumbersome. Under this proposal, the current, 'presumptive' titles (based on revenue records) would be registered as conclusive titles during revisional surveys. It is recommended that the process start with undisputed titles, and that land settlement be conducted systematically from village to village within a given district. Given the expected volume of disputes, one possibility may be to establish special courts for land adjudication, to relieve some of the existing burden on civil courts.

Little practical progress has been achieved in implementing this proposal to date, however. The Chief Minister of Bihar is reported to have attempted to introduce title registration but failed owing to opposition from rural landlords who feared loss of land to tenants. A former 31 File of correspondence held by Professor D C Wadhwa.

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