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THE 'OTHER' INDIA
that person.
i) a share of the produce of such
land or
ii) the estimated value of a portion of
the crop raised on the land or
iii) a fixed quantity of produce irrespective
of the yield from the land, or
iv) produce or its estimated value partly
in any one of the ways described above
and partly in another, Das (1989).
The law provided that notwithstanding
anything in Law, contract or usage or
in any decree or order of any Court but
subject to the provisions of this Acta)
No tenant with permanent and heritable
rights over holdings in terms of
produce rent was liable to pay more
than 2/3 rd of the rate of rent payable
or to express it in a different way rent
payable was not to exceed 1/6 th of the
produce or value thereof.
b) No landlord was entitled to recover
any cess, rates or other dues payable
or deliverable in relation to the land
by a tenant holding on produce rent.
c) When rent was deliverable in kind it
was to be delivered at the landlords’
granary in the village in which the
land was situated or at such other
granary, within 3 miles of the village,
as may be provided on that behalf by
the landlord.
Further as per the Act, a temporary
tenant was not bound to pay more than
25 percent in kind or cash of the gross
produce of the land. Further it was added
that no tenant having permanent or
hereditary right in land was bound to
pay more than 16 percent of the gross
produce of the land. However to nullify
the very purpose of the Act, the landowners
were obtaining written undertakings
from the tenants to pay 50 percent
of the gross produce after harvest and
that too without any rent receipt.
c. Orissa Land Reforms Act, 1960
The Orissa Land Reforms Act, 1960 and
its subsequent amendments exhibited a
certain degree of qualitative shift from
the earlier tenancy legislation as discussed
above. The basic thrust was given
on land to the tiller. One of the notable
features of O.L.R. Act 1960 relates to
conferment of permanent, heritable and
transferable rights on all raiyats over
their land.
Besides, the agricultural labourers
To nullify the very purpose of the The Orissa Tenants’ Relief
Act, 1955, the landowners were obtaining written undertakings
from the tenants to pay 50 percent of the gross produce
after harvest and that too without any rent receipt
and the village artisans were granted
property rights in respect of their dwelling
houses constructed on the lands of
the superior landlords. Amendment in
O.L.R. Act (Act 17 of 1972) also enabled
the tenants to become ryots in
whole of the land under their occupation
under section 36-A, subject to receipt
of application by the tenant within two
years from October 2 nd , 1973. But the
response from the tenants to claim occupancy
rights was not satisfactory. Hence
under section 36-B the Revenue Officer
was empowered to take appropriate action
where no application was received
from a tenant. Besides, the amount of
rent was retained at 25 percent of the
gross produce of the land or the value
thereof or the value of 25 percent of the
estimated produce of the land.
IV. Evaluation Of Tenancy Reforms
Act In Orissa
After having gone through a brief account
of some of the important tenancy
legislation it would be wise to ascertain
as to what extent these legislation have
yielded results as were supposed to be
during the time of their inception. With
regard to the operation of the Orissa
Tenants’ Protection Act of 1948 it experienced
varied results in different areas
and in most of the cases the tenants did
not claim their dues. For instance Puri
District alone accounted for more than
2/3rd of the cases filed (in the years between
1955-56 and 1956-57) and about
70 percent of the cases filed settled
without any claim on behalf of tenants,
Dash (1989). Moreover, allowing landlord
owning less than 33 acres of land
to evict tenant also questions the very
purpose of the Act. The limit of 33 acres
of land was too high in the land holding
context of Orissa where the majority of
farmers do belong to the categories of
landless labourers or marginal or small
farmer categories (Jena, 1968).
Similarly a Report on the working of
tenancy laws prepared by B. Mishra and
B. Jena (1958) 2 also confirmed that in
three villages of Balasore District, namely
Kalei, Mahadevpur and Balarampur,
out of 105 cultivating families 45 families
reported to have cultivated land on payment
of the share of 50 percent of the
gross produce which strictly violates the
O.T.R. Act, 1955 recommending strongly
a tenant not to pay more than 25 per-
186 THE IIPM THINK TANK