Why is entry of Common Resources in the Panchayat Asset Register Important?

Encroachment, the illegal occupation and cultivation of common land, 

occurs throughout many less-developed countries. Much of this encroachment 

has been at the boundaries of common and private land: 

Farmers with private land adjacent to the common land encroach by 

gradually moving the boundary marker, incorporating the common land 

into their own holdings, and farming it as their own 

to the exclusion of others.

-Elizabeth J Z Robinson 

(University of Oxford) Sept 2004

The above observation by Elizabeth J Z Robinson is widespread and is a story of the common lands and water bodies across the country. Hearing on one such issue, the Supreme Court of India in 2011 pronounced a landmark judgement for the management and governance of the commons in the country. The Court gave directions to all the State Governments in the country to prepare schemes for eviction of illegal/unauthorized occupants of Gram Sabha/Gram Panchayat/Poramboke/Shamlat land and these lands be restored to the Gram Sabha/Gram Panchayat for the common use of villagers of the village.  It provided a hope and momentum for the communities to get back the rights over the commons that they lost to the encroachments. 

In the process of land settlement in the country, while the individuals were provided rights to the private lands, the common lands were brought under the purview of the state through the principle of Eminent Domain. These lands were supposed to be managed with the principle of Public Trust Doctrine – where the State is not an absolute owner, but a trustee of all natural resources (Singh 2013). For the process of better land management, certain lands are managed by the Revenue Department, some by the Forest department and some by the  panchayats through custodial rights provided to them. The lands in many parts were also reserved for specific purposes and have guidelines for such uses.

The Tragedy of Commons is not just because the communities have not been able to regulate themselves but also because of gross neglect by the regulating agencies. As Bromley & Cernea, 1988 put it, many states have taken on far more resource management authority than they can be expected to carry out effectively. This has led to a vicious cycle of furthering encroachments and inaction by communities as well as authorities.

This is further exacerbated because of the lack or difficulty in accessing the maps/data about the common lands for the local citizens. Though several governments have been in the process of digitising land records, there’s a long way to go for the data to be available as open access for various stakeholders to access and enable engagement on the issue. The siloed functioning of each department like the revenue department, forest department, panchayats, etc further makes it difficult to manage the resources. Making the data available digitally (especially in spatial formats) through the open-data registries would help in better governance and analysis.

It's a tragedy that while the panchayats have been given the custodial rights to manage the commons, the details of the same are not maintained nor available to them at their level. While there are provisions for entry of such assets into the Panchayat Asset Register, the processes are rarely followed. The panchayat asset register only maintains the fixed and movable assets they own, but in most cases across states, they do not update their records with the lands they are expected to manage. 

Making sense of entry into Asset Register

In its simplest form, an asset register is a detailed list compiled of all assets held by the institutions. The purpose of an asset register is to enable institutions to know the status, condition, location, price, depreciation, and the current value of each asset. Entering of the information in the Asset Register enables:

• Providing transparency of all asset data

• Helping to track and identify assets, prevent assets from being lost or stolen 

• Ensuring all assets remain compliant with regulatory standards, provide an accurate audit trail

The entry of an asset in the Asset Register brings along functions that ensures the assets are in proper shape and condition. It requires undertaking a physical audit or social audit of the public assets for safeguarding the same against mis-use or misappropriation.

It may be noted that entering the physical assets like the grazing lands, forest lands or lands meant for development purposes along with the resources being developed under various programs especially MGNREGS and regular social audit once every quarter/six months would go a long way in reducing or removing encroachments along with designing programmatic investments in the resource.

Making Land Audit a way

In the recent past, several local governments especially in the urban spaces have been undertaking land audits or Performance Audit on Land Management based under Section 19(2) of the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (Duties, Powers and Conditions of Service) Act, 1971. In 2014, land management audit was undertaken for Delhi Development Authority; Land Audits are being undertaken by the Ministry of Defence for the large tracts of land for use by Services and other related organisations hold; more recently in April 2022, the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) undertook a land audit for the identification of lands that were encroached upon and reclaim their possession. The examples provide an adequate precedent for such land audits to be undertaken across.

Given the issues of encroachment of the common lands, forest lands or water resources, having Land Audit as a regular practice should be put in place. Given the wide spread dependence of several stakeholders on the commons, evolving mechanisms for social audit of land need to be evolved. This would help & assist in identifying encroachments and taking action related to removal of their encroachments and enable better investments in the restoration and upkeep of such resources. 

The framework of the Audit should include and assess the following: 

• Whether there is a proper demarcation of the land parcels; whether an effective system of records management and documentation exists; 

• Whether there is mis-use or encroachments on the land; whether action has been taken for removal of such encroachments and the results thereof; whether these were undertaken in accordance with the applicable legal and regulatory framework;

• Whether an efficient planning mechanism for carrying out the land management activities was in place and was functional; Whether restoration/management activities are being executed with efficiency, economy and effectiveness; 

• Whether an effective internal control and monitoring system was in place for land management activities. 

Once the Panchayats realise their responsibility as custodians of the common lands and the instruments of asset registers and audits are in place, we believe the encroachments on the Commons would drastically reduce and trigger better governance of the resources.

SUBRATA SINGH

A version of the article has been published in "Ideas for India" on 7th December 2022 in the link below

https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/governance/the-panchayat-asset-register-an-instrument-to-conserve-india-s-commons.html

Data-driven Approach to Water Management

The story of water has been like the story of Blind Men and the Elephant written by John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887). We do not have a comprehensive view of water nor a central authority looking at water governance as a whole. We treat drinking water, surface water, ground water separately, perhaps to manage it scientifically as well as efficiently. Is it time for us to question this approach? Is it necessary for us to understand the policy and governance blindspots and reimagine the way water should be governed?

While we begin to answer the above, we need to examine at what level should water governance institutions be most appropriate? We have been discussing hydrological boundaries such as river basins, macro watersheds, micro watersheds and aquifers or administrative boundaries such as village or panchayat or at higher levels or through user groups such as water-user associations, ground water associations and paani samitis. We have been experimenting with various institutional forms at various levels, but we are still searching for effective governance structures to manage the water resources. This is further complicated because the decisions on water are further dictated by land use decisions, agriculture, horticulture, industrial uses as well as urban demands.

While we understand polycentric governance through multiple nodes of decision making may make sense, it is really difficult to understand who is evolving the collage - seeing them together to build a coherent narrative. The macro institutions at river basin level are definitely the bodies that need to see it together and develop policies and governance framework for water use. While these institutions have been long conceptualised and put in place, they failed to make a significant impact in water governance.

Strong mental models have influenced agriculture to bring us to a state where we are today - ‘wrong crops in wrong areas’; market mechanisms have influenced research and extension institutions to promote the same; research and development to cater to such crops, etc. As a result, we lost crops that suited local conditions, that were resilient to such climatic conditions and suited local tastes. We have gone too far and too deep in re-architecting the landscapes - perhaps at a point of no return!

Today we would perhaps need to rethink the model of water governance and water led production systems. We need to wrest the responsibility of water governance to more long standing institutions at village and panchayat levels. It is at this level, that water is seen more holistically and it is the level where better consciousness can lead to better governance. It is the level where the conjunctive nature of water is better realised and understood. It is the level where work on the demand side of water is more palpable as work on demand side management requires development of norms and byelaws; trust and understanding among each other; strong conflict resolution mechanisms, etc.

In order to facilitate the above, it requires timely and periodic collection of data and evolving data architecture and data analytics capability to assist communities in decision making. While the need is so evident, one can only wonder why we haven’t been able to establish the system across the country. While there is a lot of research and anecdotal success stories from across the country, it is important to design a digital data architecture to assist various stakeholders to manage their water resources better. Core to the data-driven approach to water management would need run-time data collection, at saturation to make larger meaning to the data and for stakeholders to understand, co-create solutions and support the management of water at different scales.

Spatial data on water harvesting structures, wells and borewells at saturation for a block or district could change the way we understand the status and the way water resources are governed. The water levels in the wells and borewells along with information on crops and irrigation could help understand the use of water. While some of the information is collected, most of the data is not available in the public and in a common platform making it difficult for decision makers and stakeholders to engage with the issue. While there may be a fear in implementing such an initiative, as the emergence of such data may throw up several questions related to accountability and compliance to the current laws, it would definitely go a long way in evolving better water governance.

To enable this, a primary requirement would be to have a grid of dedicated cadres at panchayat level for information collection at real time. It would also require building capacities of village institutions and the panchayats (local governments) to understand the situation related to water and its usage as well as take steps to manage their resources better. The institutions at the village and Panchayat are better placed to evolve norms and rules for better water management, land-use decisions, equitable access and use of water, crop choices, cropping decisions based on water availability, as well as influence behaviour among the constituent members. Availability of the data would help various stakeholders in co-creating analytical insights and solutions to water management with reduced risk of over exploitation of the water resources. 

Subrata Singh