THE present PPP government in Sindh, after assuming power in 2008, embarked on a programme of distribution of state lands among the landless ‘haris’.

Earlier, Ms Benazir Bhutto had distributed about 35,000 acres of land among the landless peasants.

Sindh government’s policy document describes the distribution of state lands to the poor landless ‘haris’, preferably to the women members of their families, as ‘one of the central poverty reduction initiatives.’ This time, it said, the programme has been drawn with utmost care in view of the ‘weaknesses of earlier programmes’. It said, past land grants were made more or less either on the discretion of the revenue staff or on the basis of ‘political patronage’.

According to a study carried out by Participatory Development Initiatives (PDI), an important issue was the variation in the initial announcements and the later record of available land. Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah had announced in his budget speech in 2008 that revenue department has provided details of 212,864 acres of land in different districts which included 136,1784 acres of barrage land that would be distributed among the landless peasants. But the total available land shown by the district revenue officials was 85,199 acres only.

However, during the field survey in five districts, the civil society organisations pointed out that the revenue department officials have deliberately avoided identifying certain pieces of land in certain districts. In Thatta and Badin, in many cases, the land distributed among the landless women peasants was seen having been affected by salinity. In Nawabshah and other districts of central and upper Sindh, the land was found waterlogged with a jungle of wild bushes on it. In some cases, the land marked for distribution turned out to be under litigation and this fact came to light after the land was granted to a hari.

Then, in many ‘kutcheries’ organised for grant of state lands, simple lists of the beneficiaries were read out without any discussion.

The fortunate haris were asked to visit revenue offices in the district headquarters to receive their allotment orders. Such acts made the process of land grant cumbersome and non-transparent for the poor land grantees.

In Thatta district, there were complaints that no formal procedure for collecting applications from the landless haris was adopted, nor formal kutcheris were held for land distribution. In such cases, the influential people from the districts belonging to the ruling party prepared the lists of the ‘proposed landless haris’ and presented them to the revenue department officials for issuing grant orders in the name of those people. In such cases the beneficiaries were mostly relatives of the influential political landlords.

There were also complaints about bribes demanded by the officials of revenue department for just collecting applications. A number of land grantees in Jati tehsil of Thatta said the officials had sought bribes from them in the process of land distribution.

A serious problem in holding the open kutcheries was that no separate assembly was organised for women as many of them could not attend the male-dominated assemblies due to cultural barriers.

Although the key emphasis was on the distribution of land among landless women, in many districts the number of male beneficiaries exceeded the women beneficiaries. For example, more men received land than women in Sukkur, Jacobabad and Dadu districts.

By August 2009, about 41,517 acres out of total land in the first phase i.e. 85,199 acres wwe distributed in 17 districts of Sindh.

The distribution process was initiated in September 2008. It shows the slow process in distribution as the authorities have been able to grant only 48.72 per cent of the total available land. In some districts not even 10 to 15 per cent of the total has been distributed.

On May 15, 2012, the Sindh CM was informed by the revenue officials that so far 56,187 acres have been distributed among 6,100 landless peasants, women in particular. On the directives of President Asif Ali Zardari, the CM said, the area of grant land was increased from 16 acres to 25 acres along with financial assistance of Rs50,000 in the form of seed, fertiliser and water for cultivation of four acres. Originally, each hari was to get eight acres but some got only four acres.

In many districts, land in the areas of one tribe has been distributed among the people of the other tribe. It has been done even in such areas where tribes are hostile towards each other. This has further escalated tribal tensions. Many land grantees having their names in simple lists have expressed fear that their names may be deleted from the lists any time and the land granted to them may be granted to some other person by the revenue officials.

The government has realised that mere allotment of the land will not bring the empowerment and economic benefits to the landless families unless they were also supported financially. So, a support package amounting to Rs665,543 million was approved and it was decided that agricultural inputs worth at least Rs14,500 per acre for a maximum of four acres would be given to each grantee.

But many of them have not been provided the support package.

A large number of land grantees especially in Thatta district found their land ownership short-lived when they discovered that some influential persons have filed appeals in courts against the land that has been granted to them.

There were demands everywhere that the government should immediately issue ownership documents to the land grantees to ensure that no one is able to grab their land.—Ashfak Bokhari