Uttarakhand: The gaping loopholes in the new land law

Uttarakhand chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami is a past master at putting old wineturned-to-vinegar in new bottles. His latest ‘reform’, the supposedly ‘stricter land law’ to halt the indiscriminate sale of horticultural and agricultural land to ‘outsiders’ is simply a token gesture to quell growing agitation against his government.

In mid-2023, some 200 organisations inside and outside Uttarakhand came together under the banner of Mool Niwas Bhoo-Kanoon Samvanya Sangarsh Samiti (Association of Native Land Law Agitations Coordination Committee) to draw attention to the alarming shrinkage of agricultural land in the state and protect what remained.

Even as 65 per cent of the population continue to depend on agriculture for livelihood, only 14 per cent of the land in Uttarakhand is available for cultivation. The lack of updated land records gives no clear indication of how much land has already been sold to outsiders, mainly for tourism and commercial purposes.

The Uttarakhand (Uttar Pradesh Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms Act, 1950) Amendment Bill, 2025 passed on 19 February 2025 has far too many loopholes to actually safeguard local interests, the most glaring of which relate to the ‘food baskets’ of Haridwar and Udham Singh Nagar districts.

Young farmer Gurpreet Singh, who owns 15 acres in Udham Singh Nagar pointed out, “With large chunks of arable land in the hills already sold off, the rich land mafia can now focus entirely on acquiring land in our area.” The law will apply to the remaining 11 of the 13 districts: Almora, Bageshwar, Chamoli, Champawat, Dehradun, Pauri, Nainital, Pithoragarh, Rudraprayag, Tehri Garhwal and Uttarkashi.

Amit Rawat, who owns five bighas in Tehri district, where he grows potatoes and vegetables, blames successive governments for discriminating against farmers in the mountainous regions.

“We have no access to irrigation and are dependent on the monsoon. Our local springs have long dried up. To add to our misery, we have to cope with the menace of monkeys and wild boar which raid our farms and destroy our crops.

The forest department never comes to our help on time; while shifting weather and rain patterns have forced farmers to sell their land.’’ Activist Atul Sati, who led the Joshimath Bachao Sangarsh Samiti agitation, pointed out, “Most of the land along the entire length of the Char Dham project leading up to the holy shrines of Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath has already been sold to builders and real estate agents, many of whom have built hotels, resorts and restaurants.”

Homestays too have become popular in the hills, with entire villages, like the one in Devprayag, being bought up by Delhibased industrialists. “The only land left is the Garhwal region which remains inaccessible,” Sati added.

The amended law allows non-residents to buy 250 square metres of land for residential use, with an affidavit confirming they have not made similar purchases elsewhere. But here too, there’s a catch. Former chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat’s 2017 reversal allowed outsiders to buy up to 12.5 acres, attracting tourism, real estate and infrastructure investments. Dhami’s new law maintains this loophole—even in the 11 districts where the restrictions will be enforced.

Instead of outright purchase, organisations like schools, hospitals and hotels can invest in up to 12.5 acres on a 30-year lease, with extensions possible. There is no guarantee that such reversals, special permissions and exemptions will not be granted by the state government in future. In fact, exemptions are already written into the law.

Land transactions will now be overseen by the state secretariat (read: senior bureaucrats) and district magistrates will no longer be able to personally grant permission for land purchases. All processes will be conducted through a designated government portal which will apparently also serve as a monitoring mechanism, recording all land purchases made by non-residents of Uttarakhand.

To further curb irregularities, any individual from outside the state who wishes to purchase land will have to submit an affidavit. District magistrates would mandatorily have to report all land transactions and submit periodic reviews to the revenue board and the government. All very well, theoretically, but, as a retired senior bureaucrat pointed out, “Given how corrupt the senior bureaucracy in the state is, this will allow them one more opportunity to make money.”

The new law claims to strictly regulate land use within municipal limits but does not prevent outsiders from purchasing land in cities. With the state government continuously expanding municipal limits by eating into areas around cities, villages have all but disappeared.

To cite one example, over 88 villages around Dehradun have now been brought under municipal jurisdiction. The same has been done in Herbertpur, Rudraprayag, Nainital, Bhimtal and Narendranagar, to name a few. The government claims to have taken permission from gram panchayats in order to extend municipal limits. This is to their advantage, the government claims, helping to improve facilities such as sewer lines, drinking water supply, roads and street lights.

Land has always been a politically emotive issue in Uttarakhand. People are legitimately concerned about the large-scale sale of land eroding the region’s local demography and culture.

It was thus shocking to hear finance minister Premchand Aggarwal, a four-time MLA from Rishikesh, asking, on the floor of the assembly, why these “saale pahaar ke log (bloody hill folk)” should believe that the law is only meant to serve their interests. Such divisive comments only add fuel to the fire, given that land acquisitions are often carried out by large corporations with the government’s complicity. (Not to forget that the government has already taken over huge stretches of forest land for the installation of hydro and other infrastructure projects.)

There’s another grey area in this new act. In September 2024, Dhami had announced a renewed focus on land law reforms, pledging a thorough investigation into violations related to the purchase of land. Action would be taken against those who had acquired land illegally and that land would be reclaimed by the state. Dhami had also informed the state assembly that since 2018, a total of 1,883 land purchase deals had been approved for industrial activities, tourism, education, healthcare, agriculture and horticulture.

However, 599 of these deals involved land use violations, and the state had initiated legal action in 572 cases. Proceedings were completed in 16 cases, with 9.4 hectares having already been returned to the state government. Actor Manoj Bajpayee finds himself in the centre of a controversy with the state government threatening to take back his land in Almora district because he failed to set up a yoga and meditation centre, the stated purpose for which he bought the land in 2021.

There are currently 23 such cases of land purchase violations under scrutiny, with 11 in court and 10 under investigation. Dhami claims such action is being taken to create an effective framework of land regulation, but others believe that politicians have cleverly manipulated the system in a way that allows the plunder to continue. Environmentalist Ravi Chopra maintains that successive state governments have “in a sense cheated the people… they have talked about land laws, but the laws that have been passed do not secure the land for the people of Uttarakhand.”