Darakastu Patta – De-commoning or a safety net?

[Pooja Chandran]

A tenurial arrangement called Darakastu Patta (D-Patta or DKT Patta) exists in few of the southern states of India. Government ‘wastelands’ are conditionally assigned, on application, to the landless poor for cultivation. The rights are usufruct in nature; the lands cannot be sold, exchanged or mortgaged. If the state resumes such land for a public purpose, the assignees are eligible for compensation at full market value of the land, on par with private landowners.

At the same time, popular media is fraught with reports on alienation, encroachment and illegal sale of such lands. In Telangana, for instance, 98,000 acres of government assigned land in the state are either gobbled up by land sharks or illegally sold by allottees.

Governments respond by periodically regularising such transactions. Assignees’ inability to cultivate (hence, leave or sell) such lands get overlooked. Common lands diminish.

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