让印度农村贫穷人口拥有土地

POLICY RESEARCH WORKING PAPER 2123 To reduce poverty in India through a strategy of rural growth, by increasing the share of farmland operated in smail units, requires making Access to Land land distribution more in Rural India equitable. Among policy measures recommended: Selectively deregulating land- Robin Mearns lease {rental) markets reducing transaction costs In land markets, critically reassessing land administration and findinc ways to make it more transparent and to improve land administration incentive structures, promoting women's independent land rights through policy measures to increase women's bargaining power, and strengthening institutions in civil society to improve awareness, monitoring, ana pressure for reform of policies and procedures that limit access to land. The World Bank South Asia Region Rural Development Sector Unit May 1999  POLICY RESEARCH WORKING PAPER 2123 Summary findings Access to land is deeply important in rural India, where Reduce tranisaction costs In land markets, including the incidence of poverty is highly correlated with lack of both official costs and inforonal costs (such as bribes to access to land. Mearns provides a framework for expedite transactions), partly by improving svstems for assessing alternative approaches to improving access to land registration and management of land records. land bv India's rural poor. He considers India's record Critically reassess land administration agrCncies and implementing land reform and identifies an approach find ways to improve incLentive structures, to reduce rent- that includes incremental reforms in public land seeking and base promotions on pnrfoitauce. administration to reduce transaction costs in land Promote womien's independcint land rights through markets (thereby facilitating land transfers) and to policy measures to increase wornen's bargaining power increase transparency, making information accessible to within the household and in society geneu-ly. the public to ensure that socially excluded groups Improve transparency OL 'and adniinis'rakt ll and benefit. public access to information, to reduce rer-t-se kng ny Reducing constraints on access to land for the rural land administration officers atid t strengitten poor poor and socially excluded requires addressing five key people's land rights (and kl_on v-ledge trh eco') issues: restrictions on lanid-lease markets, the Strengthen institutions in ciil society Lo provide the fragmentation of holdings, the widespread failuire to awareness, monitoring, and pressure necde'l fol translate wvomen's legal rights into practice, poor access successful reformp and to proovide checks and balances on to (and encroachment on) the commons, and high inappropriate uses of state power. transaction costs for land transfers. In a com.panion paper (WPS 2124) the author Among guidelines for policy reform Mearns suggests: addresses these issues at the level of a particeular state - Selectively deregulate land-lease (rental) nmarkets, Orissa, one of India's poorest states - in an ernpirical because rental markets may be irmportant in giving the study, from a transaction costs perspective, of social poor access to land. exchlsion and land administration. This paper -- a product of the Rural Development Sector UInit, South Asia Region - is part of a large. effort in the r egionl to promote access to land and to foster more demand-driven and sociall, inclusive institLJtions i rural developrment. Copies of the paper are available free from the World Bank. 1818 H Street N', Washington, DC 20433. Please contact Geraldine Burnett, room MCI 0-156, teleplhone 202-458-2111, fax 202-522-2420, tnternet address gburnetto woildbank.org. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at vww.svr7 rldbankorghrmi 6 0l'hlicati Workpapers/home.html. The author may be contacted at rmearns(kowki-dboilk.org. MiIay 1999 (50 pages). The Policy Research Workirng Paper Series disseminates the findinggs of work zoL P;rgr's to encourage the exchs ge t fidas alo t development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even fthe prusen tatios are less thou/iily P(jiohel "ike papers carny the nam7les of the authors ancd should he cited accordingly. The hidigs, r meg. a;ipretatiohs, ana conclusio s exp,ressed in1 tl2s paper are entirely those ou the authors. They do not necessarily represent the rvie, of tche 'Aorld Binzk, its Execotive Ui'reciors, or the countries they represent. Produced by the Policy Research Disserinatior' entccu  Access to Land in Rural India Policy Issues and Options Robin Mearns Socio-Econoniist/ Natural Resource Management Specialist, World Bank (SASRD). The author gratefully acknowledges comments on an earlier draft from: Bina Agarwal, M. Balasubramanian, Will Candler, Klaus Deininger, Jean Dreze, John English, Diana Hunt, Cecile Jackson, John Kerr, Nalini Kumar, Peter Lanjouw, Jonathon Lindsay, Michael Lipton, Jolyne Melmed-Sanjak, Richard Messick, Jessica Mott, M S Rathore, I U B Reddy, Ratna Reddy, N C Saxena, Cora Shaw, Saurabh Sinha, T V Somanatian, V S Vyas, and John Williamson. The study has also benefited from discussions with Abhijit Banerjee, Robin Burgess, Kim Cuenco, James Manor, David Marsden, Ridley Nelson, B K Sinha, and D C Wadhwa.  TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION .................................. 1 2 ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK .................................. 4 3 CONTEXT .................................. 7 EVOLUTION OF LAND TENURE SYSTEMS .................................. 7 POLITICAL ECONOMY OF LAND REFORMS .................................. 9 A NoTE ON DATA .................................. 12 SIZE DISTRIBUTION OF RURAL LAND HOLDINGS .................................. 13 LANDLESSNESS AND ABSENTEE LAND OWNERSHIP .................................. 16 FARM SIZE AND PRODUCTIVITY .................................. 17 4 KEY POLICY ISSUES .................................. 19 LAND MARKETS .................................. 19 FRAGMENTATION OF HOLDINGS .................................. 22 GENDER AND LAND RIGHTS .................................. 25 ACCESS TO AND ENCROACHMENT ON COMMONS .................................. 27 RECORDS OF RIGHTS IN LAND .................................. 30 5 SUMMARY AND POLICY OPTIONS .................................. 36 BIBLIOGRAPHY.39 LIST OF TABLES TABLE 1: TYPOLOGY OF PROPERTY RIGHTS IN LAND .6 TABLE 2: TYPOLOGY OF STATES BY TENURE SYSTEM AND AGRICULTURAL GROWTH RATE. 9 TABLE 3: KEY PARAMETERS IN INDIA'S AGRARIAN STRUCTURE .14 TABLE 4: POTENTIAL STAKEHOLDERS IN REFORM OF LAND REGISTRATION .33 LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 1: DISTRIBUTION OF HOUSEHOLD OWNERSHIP HOLDINGS: ALL INDIA, 1953-54 TO 1982 . 14 FIGURE 2: SHARE OF TOTAL OWNED AREA BY HOLDINGS SIZE: ALL INDIA, 1953-54 TO 1982 .15 FIGURE 3: DISTRIBUTION OF HOUSEHOLD OPERATIONAL HOLDINGS: ALL INDIA, 1953-54 TO 1982 . 15 FIGURE 4: SHARE OF TOTAL OPERATED AREA BY HOLDING SIZE: ALL INDIA, 1953-54 TO 1982 .16 LIST OF ANNEXES ANNEX 1: LAND REFORM LEGISLATION IN INDIA, BY STATE .46 ANNEx 2: STUDIES OF LAND SALE-PURCHASE TRANSACTIONS IN RURAL INDIA .48 ANNEx 3: STUDIES OF LAND-LEASE MARKETS IN RURAL INDIA .49 i  1 INTRODUCTION Access to land is of fundamental importance in rural India. The incidence of poverty is highly correlated with lack of access to land, although the direction of causality in this relationship is not clear. Households that depend on agricultural wage labor account for less than a third of all rural households but make up almost half of those living below the poverty line (Agarwal 1 994a). Many of these households also own some land, but in holdings that are so small or unproductive that their owners derive a greater share of their livelihoods from their own labor than from their own land. Land plays a dual role in rural India: aside from its value as a productive factor, land ownership confers collateral in credit markets, security in the event of natural hazards or life contingencies, and social status. Those who control land tend to exert a disproportionate influence over other rural institutions, including labor and credit markets. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overall framework for the critical assessment of alternative approaches to improving access to land by the rural poor in India, as part of a broader strategy for reducing poverty through rural growth. Viewing persistent constraints on access to land in their historical context, the paper considers India's record in implementing land reforms, and identifies the elements of a new, complementary approach to improving access to land by the rural poor. This approach includes incremental reforms in public land administration that seek to reduce transaction costs in land markets, thereby facilitating land transfers, while at the same time increasing transparency and public access to information to ensure that socially excluded groups also benefit. The weight of international evidence now strongly endorses a rural growth strategy based on the dynamism of economically viable, family farms. This means increasing the share of farmland operated in small units, which are demonstrably more equitable, labor-intensive and poverty-reducing than large holdings, and are at least as efficient or productive per unit area. In the Indian context, in which growing numbers of rural inhabitants are net consumers rather than producers of food, the equity gains will come as much from the higher demand for labor than from direct land transfers to the poorest (Lipton 1985). While India's agrarian systems have not prevented the poor from taking advantage of new opportunities presented by the Green Revolution, the gains from technological innovation remain unequally distributed between those with access to land, water and inputs, and those without. There is broad consensus that the main causes of rural poverty lie in low rates of agricultural growth and factor productivity (Fan, Hazell and Thorat 1998), and that the key to raising productivity in agriculture lies largely in the deregulation of the policy environment together with measures to broaden access to land and complementary inputs. More equitable distribution of operational land holdings would create more equitable patterns of demand, which in turn would enhance growth in the rural non-farm sector and remove some of the biases in credit, marketing and research institutions that arise from the unequal distribution of assets and power (Singh 1990). This is supported by recent evidence which suggests that countries with more equal land distribution experience higher rates of economic growth (Deininger and Squire 1996). This approach is consistent with the World Bank's overall strategy for rural development, its Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) for India, and the Government of India's own policies under the Ninth Plan. The Bank's rural development strategy, resting on the demonstrated 1  efficiency of family farms, includes a renewed emphasis on access to land and the promotion of secure land rights, particularly for the rural poor and socially excluded (World Bank 1997). Restrictions on land rentals, for example, are discouraged as they hurt the poor by restricting the supply of land to rent. Where land distribution is highly unequal, land reform is called for, and lessons from experience suggest that negotiated, decentralized and participatory approaches to land reform hold considerable promise. Institutional reforms lie at the heart of such approaches, and require the careful building of consensus among all stakeholders involved in land administration. The India CAS identifies regulations around land, labor and capital markets as factors inhibiting private investment. For example, high transaction costs in land markets act as a significant brake on access to land through the market, and the resolution of land disputes is bogged down by an overburdened judicial system. World Bank support to India's poverty alleviation efforts emphasizes the social and economic inclusion of poor and disadvantaged groups, complemented by a growing emphasis on rainfed agriculture within the rural development program. Improving access to land by women is among the priority areas envisaged for Bank support to redress gender inequities, particularly in North India. During public consultations held to support CAS preparation in September 1997, attention was widely drawn to the importance of land rights of the poor, women, and tribals, in the context of poverty reduction strategies. Land reforms are a major policy focus of the Government of India's Department of Rural Development under the Ninth Plan (1997-2002), following recent reassessment of India's post- Independence land reform experience. State-initiated land reforms are conventionally believed to have been unsuccessful in getting land to the poor in India (albeit with notable exceptions such as West Bengal), although it is widely acknowledged that they have been successful in creating the conditions for agricultural growth by consolidating the position of small and medium farmers. However, recent evidence suggests that much more redistribution has been achieved than is often supposed'. The credible threat of enforcement of ceilings legislation, for example, accounts for much of the redistribution that has taken place through the market, even in 'non-reform' states such as Bihar (Yugandhar and Iyer 1993). Nonetheless, it is now recognized that the prospects for bringing about a meaningful improvement in access to land by the rural poor may be even stronger if attention is also turned to more pragmatic and market-oriented measures, such as the selective liberalization of land-lease markets; the promotion of women's land rights; and efforts to increase transparency in land administration and public access to land records (GOI 1997a). Incremental reforms in land administration, designed to facilitate more rapid, fairer and cheaper conveyancing procedures, are also likely to assist in the implementation of land reform legislation, thereby enabling state-initiated and market-oriented approaches to land reform to complement one another. In short, policy instruments and mechanisms that improve access to land for the rural poor and socially excluded are of high priority in bringing about efficient, equitable, sustainable, 1 See for example the excellent series produced by the Land Reforms Unit of the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie, based on extensive field studies carried out by Indian Administrative Service probationers. Four volumes have been published to date: Yugandhar and Iyer (1993), Yugandhar and Datta (1995), Yugandhar (1996), and Aziz and Krishna (1997), dealing with experience in Bihar, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka respectively. 2  and poverty-reducing patterns of economic growth in rural India. This overview paper provides the overall framework for a more detailed study of the factors that constrain access to land in selected states, and considers potential policy instruments and mechanisms to reduce those constraints. Four main sections follow this introduction. Section 2 presents the analytical framework, followed in section 3 by a description of the context within which land relations in India are played out. Policy approaches to improving access to land are likely vary from state to state according to differences in agrarian structure, conditioned in turn by history and political economy. In light of shortcomings in available data, preliminary evidence is presented on the distribution of rural land, and on the relationship between farm size and productivity. Section 4 outlines five key issues that are suggested to be among the most important constraints on access to land for the rural poor and socially excluded, and which warrant further analysis in selected states. These issues are: restrictions on land-lease markets, fragmentation of holdings, the widespread failure to translate women's legal rights into practice, access to and encroachment on commons, and transaction costs associated with land transfers. The final section summarizes the main policy options considered here for enhancing access to land by the rural poor and other socially excluded groups. Since land is a state subject in India, it is not possible to suggest specific policy options except with reference to particular states. A companion paper presents an exploratory, state-level analysis of social exclusion and land administration in the state of Orissa (Mearns and Sinha 1998). This pilot study aimed to apply the overall framework developed in the present paper in a specific context, and to field-test the methodology so that it may be used as a 'template' for further studies in selected states of India. In order to produce trustworthy and meaningful findings relating to the issues identified here as priorities, careful triangulation is required between existing survey data, village studies, and primary fieldwork adopting methods of institutional and stakeholder analysis. The intention is that on the basis of several state-level studies, each applying a common framework to a common set of research questions, a broad strategy may be identified for improving access to land for the rural poor in India. 3  2 ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK The principal concern in this paper is with the ability of the rural poor and other socially excluded groups2 to gain access to and effective control over cultivable land. This calls for an analytical framework that allows for subtle nuances in the definition of property rights. The analytical framework adopted here distinguishes individuals' rights, claims or interests in land according to three parameters: (i) whether or not they may legally be upheld, under prevailing legislation (strict legality); (ii) whether or not they are socially perceived to be legitimate, irrespective of their strict legality (social legitimacy); and (iii) whether or not they are actually exercised in practice, and therefore translate into effective control over land (effective control). The last of these parameters refers to the degree of tenure security that is enjoyed in practice, regardless of the type of rights. For example, an individual with limited usufruct rights may enjoy security of tenure, if s/he is confident that s/he will actually be able to exercise those rights when necessary. Conversely, an individual with ownership rights to a parcel of land may find his or her claim to be vulnerable to land-grabbing by another individual with greater bargaining power, voice, and leverage over government officials, particularly if the original landholder's rights are not recorded in the official land records. The relative bargaining power of diverse agents strongly influences the extent to which individuals are able to enjoy effective command over land and other resources. The rural poor and other socially excluded groups, by definition, have less bargaining power vis A vis other agents (Leach, Mearns and Scoones 1998). Generally speaking, ownership rights (which may be acquired through inheritance or the sale/purchase market) are the most secure. They are also the least likely to be enjoyed by the rural poor and other socially excluded groups. Individuals not owning land but still relying on land for at least part of their livelihood may also gain access to land through: (i) the land-lease (rental) market; (ii) customary use rights in commons; and/or (iii) encroachment on public land3. These forms of property rights may be more or less secure, depending on prevailing legislation (e.g. are tenancies legally recognized and protected?); their perceived social legitimacy (e.g. are women able in practice to exercise their legal rights to land under prevailing social norms and customs?); 2 Patterns of social exclusion tend to be closely correlated though not synonymous with the incidence of poverty. It is well recognized that people of scheduled tribes and scheduled castes in India are much more likely than other groups to live below the poverty line. Throughout this paper, 'socially excluded groups' refer to people of scheduled tribes and castes, women, and the rural poor. All of these groups are more likely than better-off or more powerful and influential groups to suffer from forms of discrimination at the hands of those government officials with whom they come into contact, and to be more or less excluded from receiving entitlements through administrative procedures. 3 Owing to non-compatible definitions and mis-classification, it is difficult to obtain reliable estimates of the relative shares of the total land area in India under different uses and tenure regimes. The broad picture is as follows: private, cultivable land amounts to around 58 percent of the total land area for which records are available (of which around 9 percent is fallow and 2 percent under tree crops); forest land amounts to 22 percent of the total area (half of which has a forest cover of less than 40 percent); uncultivated (revenue) 'wastelands' 7 percent; rocky, barren land 7 percent; and urban/non- agricultural land 7 percent. 'Commons' include both cultivable and uncultivable wastelands, and some forest land, amounting to roughly 20 per cent of the total land area (World Bank 1993: 5). 4  and the relative bargaining power of the individual right-holders (e.g. in practice, are the landless able to press their legal claim to a plot of public land?). The matrix below presents a typology of common forms of property rights in land in India according to these three parameters (Table 1). From a policy perspective, efforts to improve access to land for the rural poor and other socially excluded groups may address deficiencies in any or all of these three parameters. They may concentrate on granting new, legal rights to the asset-poor while simultaneously curtailing the existing rights of the asset-rich, as under state-initiated, redistributive land reforms. They may be geared towards public awareness-raising, motivated by a concern to promote social justice, as in the case of the efforts of NGOs to protect and promote tribal and women's land rights. In addition, this paper also considers incremental reforms in the operation of land markets and the practice of land administration itself, since these also have implications for the ability of the socially excluded to gain access to land. However, none of these approaches is sufficient in isolation. Efforts to enhance security of tenure are ultimately limited by the scope of the rights in question; while new, legal rights may not be exercised in practice if individuals face excessive transaction costs in land markets and in their dealings with government land administration services. 5  Socially perceived to be legitimate? Yes No * Ownership rights, acquired through * Women's right to own land inheritance or sale/ purchase market independently (usually does not (although tenure security for those translate into effective control over with little power/ voice may be land, given high opportunity cost to an vulnerable, particularly where rights individual woman in pressing her legal unrecorded in land records) claim) Yes * Customary use rights over village * Legally protected tenancies? (may commons (may not effectively be not locally be perceived as legitimate if exercised in practice if land heavily markets for credit and labor highly degraded or encroached upon) interlinked with those for land to rent) * Legally protected tenancies under liberalized land-lease market (social legitimacy may be ambiguous) * Concealed tenancies under oral * Encroachment on commons (whether contracts in which rent exceeds legal or not this translates into effective maximum, and where length of actual control over land depends on relative occupancy entitles tenant to acquire bargaining power/ voice: e.g. more legal occupancy rights (most likely to powerful groups may gain effective No prevail where factor markets highly control over land through 'illegal' interlinked) acquisition of occupancy rights, while already landless may lose effective e 'Illegalised', customary use rights control in spite of legal entitlement) (e.g. cultivation rights of tribal communities on forest land, forbidden * Alienation of tribal land (loss of under 1980 Forest Conservation Act) effective control over land owing to indebtedness/ land mortgage) Table 1 Typology of property rights in land 6  3 CONTEXT Agrarian systems in modem India are marked by tremendous diversity. Although the particular configuration of institutions that helps to make progressive policy reforms possible in one state may not be present in others, it is important to be aware of broad variations in the factors that influence patterns of agrarian change (Binswanger and Deininger 1997; Binswanger, Deininger and Feder 1995). Various types of institution are if relevance in understanding how contemporary agrarian systems have evolved in India, including personal laws and customs regarding inheritance, the significance of patron-client relations, collective action to overcome ecological risk and missing markets, and other institutions in village society (Sahu 1997). For present purposes, we restrict attention to two factors that help to understand the political economy of agrarian relations in contemporary India: the historical legacy of British land settlements; and variation between states in enacting and implementing land reform legislation. EVOLUTION OF LAND TENURE SYSTEMS Three broad types of land revenue system were introduced to India under British rule (Baden-Powell 1892, Sharma 1992a). The differences between these systems account for significant variations in the subsequent evolution of land tenure systems throughout rural India. This is not to suggest that these systems swept away pre-existing land relations, however. A defining characteristic of each system was the attempt to incorporate elements of the preceding agrarian structure, and the interaction of colonial policy and existing systems produced widely different local results and hybrid forms4. Different areas came under British land settlements at different times. Tribal areas, in particular, were not covered by any of these systems, and some tribal areas remain to be 'settled' even today. Under the zamindari or 'permanent settlement' system, introduced around 1793, feudal lords (zamindars, jagirdars etc) were declared proprietors of the land on condition of fixed revenue payments to the British regime. Peasants were transformed into tenant farmers, and rents were collected by serried ranks of intermediaries below the level of zamindars. This system prevailed over most of North India, including present-day Uttar Pradesh (except Avadh and Agra), Bihar, West Bengal, most of Orissa, and Rajasthan (except Jaipur and Jodhpur), and covered around 57 per cent of the total area cultivated. The other major system was the ryotwari system, introduced in Madras in 1792 and in Bombay in 1817-18. In this case, individual cultivators (ryots or raiyats) were recognized as proprietors of their land with rights to sub-let, mortgage, and transfer their land by gift or sale. Their tenure of land was secure so long as revenue payments were made directly to the collectors of the colonial administration. The ryotwari system held sway over most of South India, including present-day Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, and most of Madhya Pradesh and Assam. The princely states of Jaipur and Jodhpur in Rajasthan also fell under ryotwari-type systems. Pockets of zamindari-type tenure existed within these ryotwari areas, particularly where administered by local rajas or nawabs. Ryotwari systems accounted for around 38 per cent of the total cultivated area. 4 For example, the techniques and instruments used in land surveying in many parts of India even today remain substantially unchanged since their introduction by Todormal, Emperor Akbar's finance minister during the 16"t century. 7  The third type of system was the mahalwari system, in which revenue settlement was made with entire villages as collective units. Peasant farmers contributed shares of the total revenue demand for the village (maha!) in proportion to their respective holdings. The state was initially entitled to as much as 83 per cent of gross produce in revenue, although this was later lowered to 66 per cent. The mahalwari system was introduced between 1820 and 1840 to Punjab (including both present-day Pun jabs in Pakistan and India, and the state of Haryana), parts of what are now Madhya Pradesh and Orissa, and the princely states of Avadh and Agra in Uttar Pradesh. This type of tenure system was much less extensive, and accounted for some 5 per cent of the cultivated area. Although land markets had existed since at least the Moghul period, transfers of land were first institutionalized with the British land settlements. Legislation introduced in ryotwari and mahalwari areas during the 1 850s enabled money-lenders to recover debts on loans secured on land holdings. Since revenue assessments were so high (particularly in ryotwari areas5), indebtedness grew, and dispossession of land led to rapidly rising tenancy. As a result, rural society in ryotwari and mahalwari areas was polarized into landlords and rich peasants versus tenants and agricultural laborers, and the distribution of land became highly unequal6. In zamindari areas, rural society was even more hierarchically divided between landlords, tenants with hereditary rights (raiyats), sub-tenants, sharecroppers and agricultural laborers, and land distribution was even more unequal than in ryotwari areas. Early tenancy legislation (Bengal Rent Act, 1859; Bengal Tenancy Act, 1855) established occupancy rights for raiyats in zamindari areas, and attempted (with little success) to limit rents paid by sub-tenants and sharecroppers to 50 per cent of gross produce with written agreement and 25 per cent if not. In ryotwari areas, however, tenancy was not officially recognized or regulated by the colonial regime and no action was taken to stem the flow of distress sales, dispossessions and evictions until the Bombay Tenancy Act, 1939. By the time of independence, some 40 per cent of the total rural population of India were landless agricultural laborers. Table 2 presents a typology of states according to the type of tenure system they inherited. Data are also shown on the growth of agricultural production over the period 1970-94. The intention is not to suggest that the legacy of former land settlements has any direct causal relationship with contemporary agricultural performance. It does reveal, however, that former ryotwari and mahalwari areas of South and West India have tended to show higher rates of agricultural growth than have former zamindari areas of North and East India. There are notable exceptions, of course, since agricultural performance is influenced by many factors other than inherited tenure systems. Two notable land reform states stand out as outliers: Kerala has performed less well than most former ryotwari areas, while West Bengal has performed better than all other former zamindari areas and ryotwari areas. Nonetheless, the contention that the legacy of inherited tenure systems can have lasting impacts is also borne out by micro-level 5Initial assessments were so high that they often constituted the entire economic rent from land. Re- assessments made in 1860 in Bombay and 1855 in Madras (which continued until 1937) led to even higher land revenues, resulting in famine and prompting agrarian revolts (Sharma 1 992a). 6 The Royal Commission on Agriculture, 1924-25, reported that in Bombay, 86 per cent of the cultivated area was held by 12 per cent of the cultivators. In Punjab by 1939, 2 per cent of land owners held 38 per cent of cultivated land. 8  evidence from village studies. In Gujarat, for example, the consequences of the green and 'white' (dairying) revolutions have been shown to be more equitable and pro-poor in former ryotwari villages than in former zamindari villages (Singh 1985). The evidence from Orissa also suggests that land records tend to be more accurate in ryotwari areas as compared with zamindari areas (Mearns and Sinha 1998). Table 2 Typology of states by tenure system and agricultural growth rate Tenure system, State Average annual growth in agricultural production, 1970-94 (