Skip to main content

It's now official: Gujarat's 65% of the common village land encroached upon by vested interests, corporates

A recent survey, quoting Gujarat government sources, has found that, despite loud claims, Gujarat would be suffering from a shortage of a whopping 65 per cent of the common village land, meant for grazing of cattle. Carried out by a team of activists working under the Maldhari Rural Action Group (MARAG), an Ahmedabad-based non-profit organisation, the survey was carried in 90 villages in three districts – Kutch, Patan and Surendranagar. The survey uniquely juxtaposed the spot analysis in each of the villages and the government data on gauchar – as the grazing land is identified – and found that there is not much difference between the two.
Quoting official government sources, the survey said, in the 30 villages of Nakhatra taluka of Kutch district, there should have been 24,880.8 acres of land for 65,317 cattle, if the official norm of 40 acre for 100 cattleheads is to be maintained. However, the survey found that only 2,736.1 acres of land existed as gauchar, suggesting a shortfall of 74.08 per cent. Based on interviews with cattle breeders or maldharis, the survey found that there was not much difference – the cattle breeders said, there should have been 24,448 acres land, while only 3,735 acres existed for 61,211 cattleheads.
The situation was found to be not very different for 30 villages taken up for survey in Shankheshwar taluka of Patan district, where, officially, there should have been 11,278 acres of gauchar land, though only 4,290.9 acres (or 37 per cent of the actual requirement) was available for 28,195 cattleheads. Similarly, in the 30 villages surveyed in the Patdi taluka of Surendrangar district, there should have been 10,180 acres of land, while only 5,083.23 acres (or 50 per cent) gauchar was available to feed 25,450 cattleheads. In Patan and Surendranagar district also, the surveyors did not find much discrepancy between official and maldhari figures.
A short analysis of the survey said that in none of the villages did the team found the norm of 40 villages per acre has been maitantained. “According to the complaints we received, most of the gauchar land has either been encroached upon by vested interests or has been illegally handed over for industrial or other commercial use”, the analysis said, adding, “We also found that that there has not been any land measurement of the area required for cattle in Gujarat villages. A spot survey needs to be carried out by the revenue department officials for this on a regular interval.”
The survey demanded that not only the norm of 40 acres of gauchar land for every 100 cattleheads should be maintained, efforts should also be made to ensure that encroachments are removed, so that the maldharis are able to eke their livelihood. “In fact, the government should initiate formation of maldhari committees in each village for this”, the analysis said, adding, “Lack of common village land for grazing purposes is one of the reasons why the problem of stray cattle has come into existence.”
The analysis sought to blame dominant sections of two important communities of – Patel and Darbar – for cornering and encroaching upon most of the gauchar land. “Grasslands were either encroached upon either by the dominant sections of the two communities or by people having farms next the grasslands”, it said, adding, “The government has not allacated land to the landless, and instead allowed it to pass it on to powerful persons. The situation is that 80 per cent of the Kadamm community in Kutch and Surendranagar districts have been rendered landless. And those who have been allocated land, it is mostly not irrigable.”
Meanwhile, senior activists believe that Kutch's maldharis have suffered the most because of post-2001 killer quake industrialisation, in which entrepreneurs were given huge concessions to set up shop. Talking to Counterview, a representative from the Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan, who participated in a recent Asian activists' meet in North Gujarat, said that a separate survey of Mundra taluka, where the Adanis have set up a modern port and a special economic zone, suggested that in as many as 11 villages all gauchar land has disappeared. “Plans to survey and provide land have not been successful either”, the activist added.

Comments

TRENDING

Area set aside in Ahmedabad for PM's affordable housing scheme 'has gone to big builders'

Following my article on affordable housing in Counterview, which quoted a top real estate consultant, I was informed that affordable housing—a scheme introduced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi—has deviated from its original intent. A former senior bureaucrat, whom I used to meet during my Sachivalaya days, told me that an entire area in Ahmedabad, designated for the scheme, has been used to construct costly houses instead. 

Punishing senior citizens? Flipkart, Shopsy stop Cash on Delivery in Ahmedabad!

The other day, someone close to me attempted to order some goodies on Flipkart and its subsidiary Shopsy. After preparing a long list of items, this person, as usual, opted for the Cash on Delivery (popularly known as COD) option, as this senior citizen isn't very familiar with online prepaid payment methods like UPI, credit or debit cards, or online bank transfers through websites. In fact, she is hesitant to make online payments, fearing, "I may make a mistake," she explained, adding, "I read a lot about online frauds, so I always choose COD as it's safe. I have no knowledge of how to prepay online."

Gujarat slips in India Justice Report 2025: From model state to mid-table performer

Overall ranking in IJR reports The latest India Justice Report (IJR), prepared by legal experts with the backing of several civil society organisations and aimed at ranking the capacity of states to deliver justice, has found Gujarat—considered by India's rulers as a model state for others to follow—slipping to the 11th position from fourth in 2022.

Just 5% Gujarat Dalit households 'recognise' social reformers who inspired Ambedkar

An interesting survey conducted across 22 districts and 32 villages in Gujarat sheds light on the representation of key social reformers in Dalit households. It suggests that while Dr. B.R. Ambedkar's photo was displayed in a majority of homes, images of Lord Buddha and the 19th-century reformist couple, Savitribai Phule and Jyotiba Phule, were not as commonly represented.

Whither PMAY? Affordable housing in decline as Indian real estate shifts focus to premium segments

A leading property consultant that seeks to provide comprehensive real estate services to developers, corporates, financial institutions, and the government has reported that, while housing prices have risen between 10–34% across India's top seven cities over the past year, the once-robust supply of affordable housing has "tottered and dwindled."

Of lingering shadow of Haren Pandya's murder during Modi's Gujarat days

Sunita Williams’ return to Earth has, ironically, reopened an old wound: the mysterious murder of her first cousin, the popular BJP leader Haren Pandya, in 2003. Initially a supporter of Narendra Modi, Haren turned against him, not sparing any opportunity to do things that would embarrass Modi. Social media and some online news portals, including The Wire , are abuzz with how Modi’s recent invitation to Sunita to visit India comes against the backdrop of how he, as Gujarat’s chief minister, didn’t care to offer any official protocol support during her 2007 visit to Gujarat.  

Not just Haren Pandya, even Dhirubhai Shah, youngest assembly speaker, wanted to be Gujarat CM

Dhirubhai Shah with Keshubhai Patel  When Keshubhai Patel was sought to be replaced by the BJP high command in 2001, everyone knows that Narendra Modi became the final choice. However, someone who was part of the top circles those days now tells me something I had no knowledge of—that the choice was between Modi and a Kutch MLA, Dhirubhai Shah, who served as the 16th Speaker from March 1998 to December 2002 during the 10th Assembly, the youngest to take the office.

Tracking a lost link: Soviet-era legacy of Gujarati translator Atul Sawani

The other day, I received a message from a well-known activist, Raju Dipti, who runs an NGO called Jeevan Teerth in Koba village, near Gujarat’s capital, Gandhinagar. He was seeking the contact information of Atul Sawani, a translator of Russian books—mainly political and economic—into Gujarati for Progress Publishers during the Soviet era. He wanted to collect and hand over scanned soft copies, or if possible, hard copies, of Soviet books translated into Gujarati to Arvind Gupta, who currently lives in Pune and is undertaking the herculean task of collecting and making public soft copies of Soviet books that are no longer available in the market, both in English and Indian languages.

My interaction with Jatin Sheth, who claims to come from Gandhian family

Today I was called for lunch by Jatin Sheth, who runs a citizens' organisation, seeking to address people's common issues ranging from poor roads to gutters going berserk. After I told him about my Soviet experiences on his insistence, he said, he wanted a person who could help him out with everything that he was doing -- from writing letters to authorities in English to representing before them. He said he could pay "up to Rs 50,000."