MAINS STUDY

1. Swachh Bharat Mission:

It was officially launched on 2 October 2014 and is Indias biggest ever
cleanliness drive.

The mission seeks to achieve clean India and aims to provide access
to toilets to all households in the country.

Objectives of the mission:

Eliminate open defecation,

Conversion of insanitary toilets to pour flush toilets,

Eradication of manual scavenging,

100% collection and scientific processing/disposal reuse/recycle of

Municipal Solid Waste,

To bring about a behavioral change in people regarding healthy

sanitation practices,

Generate awareness among the citizens about sanitation and its

linkages with public health.

Strengthening of urban local bodies to design, execute and operate

systems,

To create enabling environment for private sector participation in

Capital Expenditure and Operation & Maintenance (O&M) costs.

The components of the programme are:

Construction of individual sanitary latrines for households below the

poverty line with subsidy (80%) where demand exists.

Conversion of dry latrines into low-cost sanitary latrines.

Construction of exclusive village sanitary complexes for women

providing facilities for hand pumping, bathing, sanitation and washing
on a selective basis where there is not adequate land or space within
houses and where village panchayats are willing to maintain the
facilities.

Setting up of sanitary marts.

Total sanitation of villages through the construction of drains,

soakage pits, solid and liquid waste disposal.

Intensive campaign for awareness generation and health education to

create a felt need for personal, household and environmental sanitation
facilities.

2. UPSC Preparation: Land Reforms in India

The topic of Land Reforms forms a part of the syllabus of the General
Studies - III Paper of Civil Services Examination Preparation and it is
necessary to understand the basic outline of land reforms in India before
one delves deeper into the details.

During the period of Indian Independence, the ownership of land was

held by a group of few powerful individuals (Zamindari system). This
gave rise to the exploitation of farmers and resulted in the massive
exploitation of the rural population hindering their socio-economic
progress. Therefore, it was imperative for the Government of
Independent India to focus on equal land distribution and the land
reforms were looked upon as the sole solution to the problem of unequal
distribution of land. This move was essential as it would lead the way for
a prosperous and healthy nation-state of India.
The most succesful implementation of land reforms happened in the
states of Kerala and West Bengal. Another initiative which was aimed at
transforming the ownership of land was the Bhoodan Movement (Land
Gift Movement) started by Acharya Vinoba Bhave in 1951. The goal of
the Bhoodan Movement was to convince wealthy land owners to give a
percentage of their land to the landless people which they could utilise to
support their livelihood but not sell it.

Land reforms could be broadly classified into four major categories

which are as follows:
1) Intermediaries were abolished 2) Regulation of tenancy 3) Disparate
landholdings had to be consolidated 4) Implementation of ceiling on
landholdings
The Department of Land Resources which is under the Ministry of Rural
Development acts as the nodal agency for issues concerning land
reforms. The themes of land reforms include updation of land records,
distributing ceiling surplus land and computerising land records.
Every state has its own system of managing its land records and it could
also vary within a state in accordance with its evolution throughout
history and its regional practices. A number of departments play an
important role in the management of land records in most states and an
individual has to approach 3 to 4 agencies in order to obtain the
completion of land records. The major agencies constitute the Revenue
Department, the Registration Department, the Survey & Settlement
Department, the Panchayats and the municipal authorities. The Revenue
Department deals with textual records and mutations, the Registration
Department looks into issues concerning the verification of
encumbrances and registration of mortgage and transfer, the Survey &
Settlement Department works on the maps, the Panchayats and the
municipal authoritiesdeal with the matters concerning waste of time,
harassment and exposure to rent seeking.
The Centrally-sponsored schemes of Computerization of Land Records
(CLR) and Strengthening of Revenue Administration & Updating of
Land Records (SRA&ULR) were merged in 2008 and the National Land
Records Modernization Programme (NLRMP) was formulated to
replace them.
Though land reforms have been successful in few cases, it met limited
success in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar
owing to the presence of Naxalites who chose the path of violence as

they failed to attain power and other similar issues which lead to
massacres.The loopholes in the law of the country concerning
landholdings had also contributed to certain problems in the
implementation process of land reforms across India.