Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami is a master of packing ‘old liquor in new bottles’. As his latest ‘reform’, the alleged ‘strict land law’, which prohibit ‘outsiders’ on the indiscriminate sale of horticulture and arable land, is actually a provision to suppress the growing public outrage against his government.
In the mid-2023, about 200 organizations inside and outside Uttarakhand came forward under the banner of the original-land Land Land Coordination Conflict Committee (Union of the Original Land Law Movement Coordination Committee) to save the remaining land by attracting the attention of the government to the anciently reduced agricultural land.
Even though 65 percent of the state’s population is dependent on agriculture for livelihood, but now only 14 percent land is available for farming in Uttarakhand. Due to unavailability of updated land records, it is difficult to understand how far, especially for tourism and commercial purposes, how many lands have already been sold to outsiders.
Uttarakhand (Uttar Pradesh Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms Act, 1950), passed on 19 February 2025, Amendment Bill, 2025, in fact, there are many flaws on the question of protecting local interests, the most flaws are related to the ‘agricultural needs’ of Haridwar and Udham Singh Nagar districts.
Young farmer Gurpreet Singh, owner of 15 acres of land in Udham Singh Nagar, says that “A large part of arable land in the mountains has already been sold and land mafia can now focus on grabbing land in our area completely.” This law (out of thirteen) will apply to the remaining eleven districts- Almora, Bageshwar, Chamoli, Champawat, Dehradun, Pauri, Nainital, Pithoragarh, Rudraprayag, Tehri Garhwal and Uttarkashi.
Amit Rawat, the owner of five bighas of land in Tehri district and farmers growing potatoes and other vegetables, blame the state governments for discrimination against farmers in the mountainous areas. He says that “Irrigation is not in our reach, so we are completely dependent on the monsoon. Our local waterfalls have dried long ago. Dealing with monkeys and wild boars is a new challenge that destroys crops by attacking the fields and the forest department never comes to help on time. The changing patterns of weather and rain have also forced farmers to sell their land. ”
Social activist Atul Sati, who led the movement of Joshimath Bachao Sangharsh Samiti, says that “Most of the land of the Char Dham project going to the holy temples of Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath has already been sold to builders and real estate agents, and many have also erected hotels, resorts and restaurants.
Home-sight attraction in the hilly areas is also increasing continuously. For example, like the village of Devprayag, the rural area is constantly targeted which has been bought by the industrialists of Delhi. Sati says that “only the Garhwal region is left and that too is probably because there is inaccessible”.
The revised law allows non-residents to buy 250 square meters of land for residential use, for which they have to pay an affidavit that they have not done similar purchases anywhere else. But it also has a screw.
Former Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat was allowed to buy land up to 12.5 acres in 2017, which attracted investment in tourism, real estate and infrastructure. This flaw remains in the new law of Dhami- even in the eleven districts where new sanctions are proposed. Instead of lump sum purchase, organizations such as schools, hospitals and hotels can invest up to 12.5 acres on a 30 -year lease in which expansion is possible. There is no guarantee that such reversal, special permissions and discounts will not be given by the state government in future. In fact, the law is already mentioned in the law.
The monitoring of land transactions in the new system is now responsible to the State Secretariat (Senior Bureaucrat) and the District Magistrates will no longer be able to allow land procurement in person. All processes will be operated from a specified government portal which will clearly serve as a monitoring mechanism, and where all land purchased by non-residents of Uttarakhand will be recorded.
There is a arrangement for more curb on irregularities that anyone outside the state will have to submit an affidavit. The District Magistrates will not only have to report on all kinds of land purchase-sale-transfer, but will also have to submit a review before the Revenue Board and the government from time to time. Theoretically everything seems right, but, as a former bureaucrat says, “Given how corrupt the senior bureaucracy is in the state, the new system will give them another chance to make money.”
The new law claims to strictly regulate land use within the municipal border, but does not stop outsiders from buying land in cities. The villages have almost disappeared due to the state government constantly expanding the boundary of the municipal corporation in the surrounding areas of the cities.
For example, more than 88 villages around Dehradun have now been brought under the jurisdiction of the municipal corporation. The same has happened in Herbertpur, Rudraprayag, Nainital, Bhimtal and Narendranagar. The government claims that it has taken permission from gram panchayats to expand the municipal corporation boundary. The government claims that it will benefit them, because there will help improve facilities like sewer line, drinking water supply, roads and street lights.
Land in Uttarakhand has always been an emotional issue politically. People are concerned that the sale of land is deteriorating due to the sale of land on a large scale. In this context, listening to Premchand Agarwal, a Finance Minister and four -time MLA from Rishikesh, on the table of the assembly, was shocked to anyone, “Why should” these (people of the people of the mountain) “assume that the law is only for the fulfillment of his interests.
In view of this reality, land acquisition is usually done by large corporates in connivance with the government, such divisive things only work to add ghee to the fire. (It should not be forgotten that the government has already occupied large parts of forest land to set up hydroelectric and other infrastructure projects.)
Another thing is not clear in this new Act. In September 2024, Dhami spoke of renewed to focus on geo-law reforms, promising a thorough investigation into the disturbances related to land procurement. It was said that not only action will be taken against people who illegally acquire/acquired land, such land will be taken again in its possession.
Dhami also told the assembly that since 2018, a total of 1,883 land procurement deals for industrial activities, tourism, education, health care, agriculture and horticulture have been approved. However, in 599 cases of land use rules were violated and the state also initiated legal action in 572 cases. Action has been completed in 16 cases and 9.4 hectares of land has already been returned to the state government.
Actor Manoj Bajpayee has also been engulfed in a similar dispute over land use violation as the state government has threatened to withdraw his land in Almora district. While buying land in 2021, Vajpayee had talked about setting up a yoga and meditation center on it which did not happen. Currently, 23 such cases of land procurement violation are under investigation, out of which eleven are in court and ten are under investigation.
Dhami may claim that such action is being taken to create an effective structure of land regulation, but people believe that politicians have cleverly manipulated the entire system that the loot is not going to stop.
Environmentalist Ravi Chopra says that every government of the state has continuously “cheated people in a way … he talked about land laws, but the laws made, they do not promise ‘land security’ for the people of Uttarakhand.”
(Tagstotranslate) Uttarakhand Government (T) Uttarakhand Landslides (T) CM Pushkar Dhami
