Everyone in Kashmir is aware of rampant conversion of agriculture land in the valley for construction of residential houses, shops, showrooms, commercial complexes and almost every type of building but few seem to be worried or talking about it.
If you travel from Banihal tunnel towards Srinagar and then onwards to Baramulla and Kupwara, the chain of houses and structures on paddy land on both sides of the road hardly breaks.
Take any other important road, Gulmarg, Pahalgam, Sonamarg and you will again see nearly uninterrupted line of houses and structures on both sides of the road.
Similar situation prevails with all arterial roads in the valley, the once open paddy fields now dotted by many beautifully constructed residential houses but collectively and aesthetically ugly congregations, blocking the beautiful view of the valley’s famed landscape.
When asked, most people will ask you a counter question, where else do we construct? They have a point because no housing alternatives are available to them and more so they are ignorant, not aware of the consequences of what they are doing.
A few consequences are obvious. With continued decrease in the area under cultivation of crops, the food grains production is certainly going down necessitating further increase in valley’s dependence on import of food grains from other states.
Earlier policy of J&K government in the fifties and sixties was to encourage food grains self sufficiency through allotment of surplus land under grow more food program and giving ownership to longstanding occupants of state land under government order LB-6.
Later in the seventies, the Agrarian Reforms Act, 1976 prohibited alienation and conversion of land given in ownership to the tenants, the main objectives being to augment food grains production within the erstwhile state and to ensure that land stays with the tenants to save them from becoming landless labour again and from falling into the poverty trap due to landlessness.
It is pertinent to mention here that figures of land under agriculture available with the government may not always be accurate as the conversion is often not immediately recorded by the officials incharge of this exercise.
Another consequence of conversion for construction is that it obviates the possibility of raising of alternate crops like cash crops or for purposes of horticulture, floriculture etc. Also, minus the land for agriculture, the rural population will be left without the most important factor of employment and income and a situation may arise and quite likely so, when there will be more landless than land owning families living in our villages
Agriculture’s contribution to state gross domestic product (SGDP) in J&K used to be second to salaries and wages of government employees some years back. One is not sure about the present position.
But it is obvious that land being the main factor of production in case of agriculture, any substantial decrease in the area of land available for agriculture will not only impact the SGDP adversely but will also trigger a downturn in the economy of Jammu and Kashmir leading to reduced output and joblessness in other sectors of economy, apart from agriculture and allied sectors.
However, some will argue that with conversion of land from agriculture to non-agriculture, the agrarian economy will shift to non-agrarian. This is alright in theory but for us in Kashmir, it means converting Kashmir valley into a concrete jungle, saying good bye to its world famous natural beauty, destroying its ecology and biodiversity, changing its naturally air conditioned weather irreversibly to suffocating warm and humid conditions and making way for increased levels of dangerous air and water pollution. Now, this is too big a price to pay for shutting agriculture out of our economy here in Kashmir. It is simply not worth it.
Therefore, there is a need to pull back from this mad rush for construction on agriculture land, be it paddy land or saffron land or any other type of agriculture land. This madness has already consumed some of our wetlands around Srinagar like Narkara and Rakhi Arth and is threatening Hygam, Shalabugh and even Hokersar. If not controlled or stopped, the urge among us the residents of Kashmir, to construct anywhere and everywhere, will soon eat up other retracting wetlands and water bodies in the entire valley apart from our fertile and rich lands. Unplanned constructions have also taken a toll of our premier hill stations like Gulmarg, Pahalgam and Sonamarg and now other newly developed tourist destinations are falling in the construction trap.
Now, what are the solutions? It is not easy to identify solutions and far tougher to execute. Nevertheless, here are some suggestions for the UT Government to consider:
1. It is a fact that existing rules prohibit conversion of agriculture land without permission which is mandatory except when the area of land is equal or less than 400 sq meters and required for residential purposes. For plots of larger area, elaborate procedure for obtaining permission has been prescribed by the government in 2022 through the Revenue and Rural Development Departments. There is need to ensure strict compliance of the prescribed procedure which apparently is not happening. There is also need to review the exemption accorded to smaller plots and the facility of deemed permission under the notified regulations if permission is not accorded within one month after submitting the application. These two provisions are possibly facilitating conversion, unintentionally though.
2. A new section, section 5A has been added (post 2019) to J&K Land Revenue Act which stipulates constitution of the Revenue Board under the chairmanship of Financial Commissioner (Revenue). It is a good addition. This Board can be asked to study the problem of conversion and recommend a fresh approach to conversion of agriculture land. This kind of work lies in the domain of the Board.
3. Section 3 of the same Act prescribes preparation of Regional Plan, a land use plan for areas outside the local area falling under the Development Act. It is again a good addition post 2019 but whether such a Regional Plan has been attempted or not, is not known. If such a plan is prepared for all areas in the UT excluding the local area as is envisaged under this section, large chunks of agriculture land can be set apart as no construction zone for which no application for permission would need to be entertained.
4. J&K Common Lands Act stands repealed after the transition to UT status. It had a useful provision namely section 6 which authorized the Deputy Commissioners to revise abadi deh area in each village in view of growing population, to enable the residents to build residential houses within the revised boundaries of abadi deh. There is need to reintroduce this provision which may be considered by the Board of Revenue when it takes up the subject of conversion for examination and recommendations.
5. Construction of individual or separate residential houses in Kashmir follows a land intensive pattern which means that per capita land utilization for housing is very high in Kashmir, may be the highest in the country. We need to shift to construction of apartment buildings to reduce the per capita utilization substantially and also fix upper limits on area per residential house, a kind of floor space index. To enable the shift to apartment buildings we need a new housing policy which incentivizes construction of apartment buildings through easy land purchase or allotment process, concession on taxes and duties both for the builder and the buyer and easy bank credit to the buyers. More incentives may be provided where an apartment building is proposed to be raised in a built up and densely populated area by demolition of existing structures. There is great scope for such building activity in the city of Srinagar and also other towns in Kashmir as they have many densely populated and congested old colonies which call for decongestion. Similar incentives may be allowed in case of rural areas also if there are proposals for construction of apartment buildings in those areas. The apartment buildings in Kashmir should not be allowed beyond four or five floors as people are unfamiliar with apartment living and then there is seismic activity, Kashmir being seismic zone 1V.
6. Another suggestion is to ensure strict implementation of the Ribbon Development Act so that constructions are not allowed within the prescribed distance from the centre of the road. There is also need to revise the prescribed distance from the centre of the road for all such roads where the distance limits have been fixed many years back.
7. Strict norms need to be prescribed for according permission to construct shops and other types of commercial buildings on agriculture land including the upper limit on area of agriculture land as can be allowed for conversion.
Be that as it may, there is definitely an urgency about doing something different and taking action to slow down the conversion of agriculture land in Kashmir as building activity has assumed epidemic proportions. Only a few days back there was this news about UN panel red flagging rapid land degradation worldwide ahead of the meeting of UN Convention to combat desertification. Conversion of agriculture land for non-agriculture purposes is also kind of degradation of land with huge environmental consequences. Every other day we hear about conferences in SKUAST(K) and at other forums relating to use of modern technology and methods in agriculture but if there is no land, where is the question of using new technologies and methods. Conversion of agriculture land is not a minor matter and therefore needs to be taken very very seriously.
(Khurshid Ahmed Ganai is a retired IAS officer of erstwhile J&K cadre and a former Advisor to Governor, J&K)