Bhubaneswar: To recognise and provide government benefits to sharecroppers, the state government had decided to enact a law during the monsoon session of the Assembly but it failed to do so.
At present sharecroppers are deprived of various benefits provided by the state government to the farmers.
To end this anomaly, the government had constituted an inter-ministerial committee headed by revenue and disaster management minister Bijayshree Routray. The other members of the panel were agriculture minister Pradeep Maharathy, cooperation minister Damodar Rout, SC and ST development minister Lalbihari Himirika while revenue secretary Mona Sharma was the member convenor.
The panel met several times and finalised the draft of the land leasing bill in July this year. As per process, the draft is sent to law department for its vetting before it is taken up by the Cabinet. But, the law department has not cleared the draft bill so far.
“We wanted to bring the legislation during the recently concluded monsoon session of the Assembly. But the draft is still pending with the law department. Without the law department’s approval, how can I bring it to the Cabinet?” Routray told Orissa POST.
Though the monsoon session is over, the government is planning to bring an ordinance for sharecroppers after the approval of the state Cabinet, the minister said.
Official sources said the draft bill is moving between revenue department and law department for the past one month because the later is seeking a lot of clarifications. “We hope the law department will clear the file very soon and then it will send to Cabinet,” sources said.
As per the government decision, a tripartite agreement will be signed between the landowner, sharecropper and concerned revenue inspector for leasing an agriculture land. The agreement will be signed for a minimum period of one year to a maximum of 10 years. The agreement will ensure that the landowner would not lose his/her land at any cost by signing the agreement.
Once the law comes into force, the sharecroppers will get benefits like crop insurance, crop loan, compensation in case of crop loss and all other benefits provided by the government. Earlier, these benefits were only for the landowners.
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