India - Common Property Resources, Sanitation Hygiene Services: NSS 54th Round, Schedule 31, January 1998 - June 1998

Col. 1: (Categories of) land resources: For this block, land resources are classified by kind of property right the user has on the land. Different kinds of property rights associated with private property, common property and state (government) property are considered for classifying the land resources. The categories of land resources are briefly discussed below:

Item 1: Owned land: This refers to all land owned by the household. For this item, a plot of land will be considered to be owned by the household if permanent heritable possession, with right to transfer (sale), the title, is vested in a member or members of the household, The area figures in all the items of this block will be recorded in hectares in two places of decimal. Note that only those with right of sale will be considered for this item (unlike Item 1 of Block 13).

Item 2: Vill. common/ panchayat/ tribal community land: This category of land will be understood as all de jure CPR land (including tribal community land), other than village forests & woodlots. Evidently, the revenue land not normally assigned to village panchayat or to a community of the village will not be considered for Item 2 of this block. Such revenue land will be considered for in Item 5 (“Govt. revenue land”) of the block. However, the beds of water bodies like rivers, streams and tanks will not be considered for this item, as these are covered in Item 7.

Item 3; Village forest

Item 4: Government forest
'government forest' includes all reserved forests, protected forests and unclassed forest which are neither individually owned nor recognized as village forest or Van panchayat forest.

Item 5: Government revenue land: Besides the revenue land not formally held by Panchayat or a village community, this category will include land under the jurisdiction of all other government departments (except forest department) like PWD, Railways, Irrigation departments etc. Uses of land collections from all such land will be recorded against this item. For example, collection of fuel wood, leaves, etc. from road-side trees will be treated as collections from government revenue land. However, beds of water bodies like rivers, streams and tanks will not be considered for this item as these are covered in Item 7.

Item 6: Land of other households (including area leased in): This includes all land owned by households other than the sampled household. Uses of land taken on lease by the sample household will be recorded against this item.

Item 7: River/ tank bed: Any of the “type of use” of the bed of water bodies like river, stream, tank, pond and lake will be considered for this item. Note that no distinction is required to be made between water bodies located on village commons or on government revenue land; use of their beds will be recorded against Item 7. Only those privately owned by households or organizations like companies, corporations, etc. will be excluded.