One of the last acts of former president Pratibha Patil while she was in office was to accord her assent to the amendment of the Kerala Land Reforms Act. The amendment allows the use of five per cent of plantation land for hotels, resorts and other tourism projects. The amendment itself is seven years old; it was in 2005 that the then UDF (United Democratic Front) government had piloted it in the state Legislative Assembly. Being an amendment to the land reforms Act, it could become a law only with the assent of the president.
It was the first government of Kerala, which came to power in 1957, led by the veteran communist E M S Namboodiripad, that had ushered in the Land Reforms Act. But it became a law only in 1963 after undergoing several dilutions and dithering on the part of the state government. The most important provision of the law was that an individual could possess only 15 acres (one acre equals 0.4 hectare) of land. The only exemption was for plantations, on which there was no ceiling. There was, however, a rider to the exemption: if the plantation land is used for any other purpose, its character would change and it would immediately attract the provisions of the Land Reform Act, including the provision on ceiling of 15 acres. It is this provision that has been amended. Apart from tourism, plantation land can now also be used for cultivation of vegetables, vanilla and herbs. Yet another provision is that cashew, which had not so far qualified as a plantation crop, has been given that status for the purpose of this Act; this would mean that one could own land without any limit if only there are at least 150 cashew trees in one hectare.
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There is widespread criticism of the amendments from environmentalists, politicians of left orientation and even a few leaders of the ruling coalition. It is a twist at the end of the tale, which would alter the tale itself beyond recognition. “This amendment will undermine land reforms,” says V D Satheesan, a Congress MLA, who along with T N Prathapan, another Congress MLA, and a few others are actively opposing the move of the state government. Satheesan points out that most of the plantations in Kerala are either in deep forests or on the fringes of tiger sanctuaries. Permitting tourism projects in such ecologically fragile areas would be suicidal, he says.