Strengthening the outer bunds: what the Kerala paddy land law keeps outside its prohibition, as a padasekhara samithi at Cheruthazham turns to a machine

Background

A padasekhara samithi at Cheruthazham in Kannur has taken to a tractor-mounted machine to build the bunds of its paddy fields, after a labour shortage followed changes in the rural employment scheme that used to do the work by hand. Bund work of that kind sits inside Kerala's paddy land and wetland Act rather than outside it. The Act's opening prohibition is wide: from the day it came into force, no owner, occupier or person in custody of paddy land can undertake any activity for the conversion or reclamation of that land except as the Act allows. Two things are expressly kept out of that prohibition, and the second is exactly what Cheruthazham is doing: growing intermediary crops without changing the ecological nature of the paddy land, and strengthening the outer bunds to protect the cultivation. Watching over the Act on the ground is a Local Level Monitoring Committee in every Panchayat or Municipality, chaired by the President, Chairperson or head of the local body, with the Agricultural Officer as its Convenor, the Village Officer as a member and three farmers' representatives. For an owner's own house the committee cannot recommend filling of over ten cents where the local body is a Panchayat, and over five cents in a Municipality or a Corporation.