Previous Year Question

With reference to land reforms in independent India, which one of the following statements is correct?

The ceiling laws were aimed at family holdings and not individual holdings.

The major aim of land reforms was providing agricultural land to all the landless.

It resulted in cultivation of cash crops as a predominant form of cultivation.

Land reforms permitted no exemptions to the ceiling limits.

Correct Answer: B

Detailed Solution

Option (b) is correct.

The expression “major aim” is crucial. The statement refers to the policy objective, not to its complete achievement. Providing agricultural land to the landless and marginal cultivators through the redistribution of ceiling-surplus land was a major objective of post-independence land reforms.

The principal components of land reforms included:

abolition of zamindars and other intermediaries;

tenancy reforms, including regulation of rent and security of tenure;

ceilings on agricultural holdings;

acquisition and redistribution of ceiling-surplus land;

consolidation of fragmented holdings; and

improvement of land records.

In 2004, the Government reported that approximately 73.67 lakh acres had been declared surplus and 54.03 lakh acres had been distributed among about 57.46 lakh rural poor beneficiaries.

Option (a) is incorrect: State ceiling laws used individual as well as family-based holding units. They were not directed exclusively at family holdings.

Option (c) is incorrect: The expansion of cash-crop cultivation was associated primarily with agricultural commercialisation, markets, irrigation, technology and other inputs—not with land reforms alone.

Option (d) is incorrect: State land-ceiling laws contained specified exemptions. Certain plantations and institutional holdings, for example, could receive exemptions subject to statutory conditions.

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