Home > Grant of State Land to Landless Haries
MESSAGE FROM HONORABLE CHIEF MINISTER SINDH
I am extremely pleased to announce that we are distributing state land to the landless haris in almost all districts of Sindh. Under this program, we would be inshallah distributing over 212,864 acres of land of which, 136,784 is the barrage land. This initiative is most significant in terms of possibilities of reducing poverty of that segment of our society which is not only the poorest of the poor in Sindh but in Pakistan. It is clearly a structural reform based on the basic philosophy of Pakistan Peoples Party and the mission of our leader Shaheed Benazir Bhutto, who struggled and laid her life for the cause of people of this country.
In contrast to the land reforms of 1959 where only some cosmetic measures were undertaken through ceilings on private land holdings, the 1972 land reforms of Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto were very clearly premised on populist sentiments of ‘peoples power’. Under these the land ceilings were fixed at 150 acres for irrigated and 300 for non-irrigated land, which was quite revolutionary at that particular time in history. And despite a massive resistance, approximately 0.9 million acres of land was resumed all over Pakistan. These reforms were followed up with another set of land reforms in 1977 to reinforce the earlier reforms however; the process was stalled due to the overthrow of the elected Government by the military.
While the subsequent regimes in Pakistan have been trumpeting poverty and poverty related interventions there has been little discussion on sustainable interventions. In the first tenure of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto, which lasted only a year and a half, considerable priority was assigned to the status of landless haris. At that time 35,000 acres of land was distributed among the landless haris and each farmer was given 12.5 acres of land.
The new Government of the Pakistan Peoples Party which has returned to power with a massive mandate; remains deeply committed to the original socio economic philosophy of the party. While, at this moment, Shaheed Benazir Bhutto is no longer amongst us, however the inhuman and cruel act of her assassination has only intensified and heightened the commitment of her party workers to the cause of strengthening Pakistan by removing innumerable socio economic distortions especially by way of improving the lot of the have nots, who have been yearning for change for last many decades.
This time, the policy for grant of state land to landless haris, has been drafted under the leadership and guidance of the party Co-Chairman Mr. Asif Ali Zardari who has consistently held that we would take our revenge by, ‘Changing the System’. One way in which we wish to change the system is to strengthen the downtrodden. Hence most serious efforts have been made to devise a system through which the Government would be able to target the genuine beneficiaries i.e target the most poor landless haris in the concerned deh or adjoining deh on very transparent basis. Secondly, the program involves a very carefully worked out support package for facilitating sustainable livelihoods for the target beneficiaries. Thirdly and most importantly, we are assigning overriding priority to women members of the landless haris. We were originally of the view that this time land should be granted to only the women members of the haris however, it was subsequently revised to avoid possibilities of litigation where some men could have challenged the policy being discriminatory. Hence remaining within the precincts of law, the Government would predominantly encourage women applicants for which necessary directions stand issued.
In terms of targeting, the Government is formally partnering with the Rural Support Programs (RSPs) in Sindh. These RSPs which already have a significant presence in the rural areas and are involved in numerous community based programs with rural communities, have now formed a consortium to be able to partner with Government in major poverty reduction initiatives. They are presently preparing a Poverty Score Card at Union Council level, which involves a detailed assessment of status of each and every household in a UC through a structured questionnaire on the basis of which the household is categorized into different categories such as destitute; chronically poor; vulnerably poor etc. This data base would enable the Government to target the genuine haris.
In addition we stand committed to help the beneficiaries move to a level where they are able to carve out a sustainable living. The RSPs have been further involved in developing a support package for various categories of land including availability of water; agriculture inputs such as seed and fertilizer etc. Depending on geographic contiguity, the beneficiaries will be organized in cooperative mode for enabling them to access agricultural implements, machinery and micro credit on collective basis. Efforts would be made to provide the support package for at least a period of two years through an institutional support mechanism for enabling each household to move to a level where they are able to generate sustainable living.
The Peoples Party led Government of Sindh and our party cadres under the dynamic leadership of Co Chairman Mr. Asif Ali Zardari stand fully committed to this program and we would make sincere and serious efforts to reduce socio economic inequality in the province by way of interventions that provide not temporary relief but help recreate social structures that are based on equity and fair play. I end my message with a prayer to Almighty Allah, for giving us the strength to stand by our commitment to the people of this country and to help us usher harmony, peace and well being of a large majority of our population.
