Amendment to Karnataka Land Reforms Act

Recently, the Karnataka government have made certain amendments to the its Land Reform Act, 1961. In the light, the opposition party in Karnataka has opposed these amendments to Act of 1961. These amendments were passed in the state legislature recently by the BJP government.  Amendments to the act, allow the non-agriculturists to buy agricultural land in Karnataka. So, there is a demand to amend this as successive governments have diluted land ownership norms several times under the Land Reforms Act.

Karnataka Land Reforms (Amendment) Bill, 2020

• This bill has amended the three key sections of the Karnataka Land Reforms Act of 1961. The amendments have been made with the section that imposed certain restrictions on the ownership of farmland.
• The bill has removed the provisions of section 79A of the act. Section 79A of the Act only allowed the people to buy agricultural land whose earning is less than Rs 25 lakh per annum.
• The bill also removed Section 79C of the Act. Section 79C of the act allowed revenue departments to investigate the alleged violations of Sections 79A and 79B during land purchases.
• As per section 79B, people earning a living through agriculture can buy agricultural land.

Why this bill has been passed?

The sections that have been proposed for amendments seeks were only facilitating the corruption in the offices of land registrars and tahsildars. The sections were not benefiting the farmers who wanted to sell their land. As per the government source, around 13000 cases of violation of Sections 79 A and B were pending. No action was taken on such cases. Further, only 2% of the agricultural land has been used for industrial purposes in the state.