People hail new land laws as major step towards development, progress

Srinagar, Jun 24: The new land laws are being hailed by the people of Jammu and Kashmir as a major step towards development and progress of J&K.
The historic initiative of the government will revamp agriculture and allied sectors besides ensuring holistic development of all sectors.
The Ministry of Home Affairs, through an order on October 26, introduced amendments to 14 laws of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir and repealed 12 others. Key amendments were made to four major state laws that governed the ownership, sale, and purchase of land in the erstwhile state, like the J&K Development Act, 1970, The J&K Land Revenue Act, 1996, The Agrarian Reforms Act, 1976 and The J&K Land Grants Act, 1960.
While progressive provisions of the repealed laws have been retained by including them in the modified Land Revenue Act, new provisions have been added to modernize existing laws. There are provisions for setting up of a Board of Revenue, Regional planning for regulating the use of land, alienation and conversion, land lease, consolidation and Contract Farming.
The Board of Revenue comprising senior officers will not only be the Developing Authority for preparing regional plans but can notify a scheme of consolidation of landholdings and also a scheme for restricting and regulating the fragmentation of agricultural landholdings to make agriculture viable.
The designation of land for industrial purposes will open up greater employment avenues for the youth who have always yearned for industrial revolution in J&K so that they can get better employment opportunities.
Recently, Jammu and Kashmir government signed 39 Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) with the National Real Estate Development Council to boost employment and per capita income.
“The NAREDCO will train 10,000 workers in various skills of the construction industry, electrical, plumbing, masonry, carpentry and the likes,” the Lieutenant Governor said, during the MoU signing event.
He said, “To facilitate transparent and accountable framework in the real estate sector, we have launched many portals — RERA portal, housing portal, integrated auction portal and these initiatives will help both developers and home buyers as one-stop portal for all their needs.”
Sinha said there were people who did not want Jammu and Kashmir to develop at par with other parts of India. “They want industries without giving land for it and development without investments. But we will break all walls that will come in the way of Jammu and Kashmir,” the Lieutenant Governor said.
Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs, Hardeep Singh Puri during the real estate summit said, “a large-scale infrastructure development, denied to the people of Jammu and Kashmir earlier, is now possible”. “By combining rich natural resources with external investment and technical expertise, the citizens of Jammu and Kashmir will now have access to a higher quality of life”, he added.
As a major initiative towards good governance and ease of convenience to the citizens, the Revenue Department started issuance of trilingual Land Passbooks in Hindi, Urdu and English to the landholders with effect from 19th of February 2022 from the districts of Jammu and Srinagar.
The land passbooks are being issued to every landholder which contain sentry from the Jamabandi in revenue estate so as to enable him to make its use for credit facilities and for other matters connected therewith or incidental thereto. The land passbook prescribed by the Revenue Department is true to the record and can be generated online by landholders without visiting a Patwari or Tehsildar or any Revenue office.