I
n late November 2024, the Haryana Legislative Assembly amended the Haryana Village Common Lands (Regulation) Act, 1961, to permit the conversion of certain categories of Shamilat deh under unauthorised occupation into private ownership through payment to the gram panchayat, a framework further streamlined and expanded in 2025 by shifting approval powers and diluting the market-rate constraint. The government presents this as an administrative settlement to reduce litigation, recover value for panchayats, and resolve long-running disputes over commons pending in revenue courts. It argues that widespread residential and agricultural encroachments have made a negotiated buy-out preferable to protracted legal battles.
A year on, the question is not only whether the amendment clears the docket, but what kind of rural order it consolidates. Common lands are a political institution, shaping livelihood security, bargaining power in rural markets, and dependence for the landless. If the ability to pay becomes the operative criterion for title, regularisation risks converting de facto possession into de jure ownership in ways that validate elite capture rather than correct it.
Commons and power
