Patna, Feb 5 (IANS) Nearly five decades after the abolition of the zamindari system, land distribution in Bihar remains highly polarized compared to any other state, according to a report,
“The total area covered by marginal land holdings in Bihar amounts to only 32.24 percent of the total land area of the state,” said the report “Landlessness and Social Justice — An Assessment of Disparities in Land Distribution and Prospects of Land Reforms”.

The report, based on land mapping carried out by two non-governmental organisations, said the serious nature of disparities is confirmed by the average sizes of different categories of landholdings in the state compared to the rest of India.

“Overall, the average landholding size of 0.75 hectares in Bihar is far below the national average of 1.41 hectares,” said the report by Ekta Parishad and Praxis-Institute for Participatory Practices.

The two organisations carried out the land mapping in Jamui, Gaya, Nawada, Patna and West Champaran.

“Amongst the 35 panchayats where the process of land mapping was carried out, disparities in distribution of land were found to be of utmost concern in the district of West Champaran,” the report released Thursday said.

According to it, in several villages in the district, people only owned homestead land nothing for cultivation. Nearly all cultivated land in such villages is under the control of big landlords.

In the case of Jaingar village in Bagaha block, 81 families occupy only 17 acres while 69 families belonging to the Scheduled Castes have on an average a mere 1.74 katha of land inclusive of homestead land.

“If the pattern of land distribution across all the locations of study are examined together, the proportion of marginal farmers having less than a hectare of land emerges to be very high,” the report said.

About 88.7 percent of landholders in the study locations have marginal holdings, their concentration being the highest in Nawada (91.8 percent) followed by Jamui (87.8 percent), West Champaran (86.3 percent) and Gaya (82.6 percent).

The proportion of marginal landholders is the highest among Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.