Act Info:
THE BOMBAY LAND IMPROVEMENT SCHEMES ACT, 19421
[Act No. 28 of 19422]
[25th January, 1943]
PREAMBLE
An Act to provide for the making and execution of schemes relating to the construction of tanks, embankments and other works, the prohibition and control of grazing for the purposes of preservation of soil, prevention of soil erosion, improvement of water supply and other matters in order thereby to protect and improve lands and crops in the Province of Bombay and for charging certain expenditure on the revenues of the Province.
WHEREAS it is expedient to provide for the making and execution of schemes relating to the construction of tanks, embankments and other works, the prohibition and control of grazing for the purposes of preservation of soil, prevention of soil erosion, improvement of water supply and other matters in order thereby to protect and improve lands and crops in the Province of Bombay and for charging certain expenditure on the revenues of the Province;
AND WHEREAS the Governor of Bombay has assumed to himself under the proclamation dated the 4th November, 1939 issued by him under section 93 of the Government of India Act, 1935, all powers vested by or under the said Act in the Provincial Legislature;
NOW, THEREFORE, in exercise of the said powers, the Governor of Bombay is pleased to make the following Act :-
NOTES
Object.-Due to failure of monsoon in many parts of the State in 1972-73, it was necessary to undertake immediately land improvement works in the command area of irrigation projects in the State so as to enable the cultivators to make full use of the irrigation water. The provisions of the Bombay Land Improvement Schemes Act, 1942, as amended from time to time were not adequate to enable Government to carry out such works as soon as considered necessary. It was, therefore, necessary to take immediate action for making suitable provision in the Bombay Land Improvement Schemes Act, 1942, which would enable Government to achieve this objective. As the State Legislature was not then in session the Governor of Maharashtra promulgated the Bombay Land Improvement Schemes (Amendment) Ordinance, 1972, on 23rd October, 1972, for this purpose. The Act replaces the Ordinance.- vide Statement of Objects and Reasons.- Mah. 44 of 1972.
The Bombay Land Improvement Schemes Act, 1942, contemplated the schemes thereunder shall be executed only at the expense of the State Government. With a view to conserve the State resources for various development activities and at the same time accelerate land improvement and improve land and crops, it was considered necessary to undertake to the works, as fast as possible, through institutional finance. To attract such finance a Company owned or controlled by the State for the purposes of executing and financing such schemes was proposed to be set up. Amendments to the Act were considered necessary as would enable the Company to invest funds in land development schemes taken up under the Act, prepared and execute the said schemes and recover in due course the dues.. It was also necessary to elaborate the nature of land development schemes which may be taken up under the Act and simplify the procedure for executing the schemes.- vide Statement of Objects and Reasons.-Mah. 18 of 1973.
Under the Bombay Land Improvement Schemes Act, 1942, land improvement schemes in the command areas of irrigation projects are prepared and executed by Government at the cost or part cost of the State Government and such cost is recovered from the owners of lands included in such schemes. The process of recovering the cost from these owners of land takes a considerably long time with the result that the capital invested by Government gets blocked and cannot be utilised for undertaking fresh schemes. The Agricultural Refinance and Development Corporation had agreed to refinance the Maharashtra Land Development Corporation through the Maharashtra State Co-operative Land Development Bank to the extent of Rs. 226.13 lakhs on the condition that the rights and obligations of the Government in respect of such schemes are transferred to the Maharashtra Land Development Corporation. There was no provision in the Bombay Land Improvement Schemes Act, 1942 under which Government could transfer its rights and liabilities in respect of the various schemes executed by it to the said Corporation. The Act is intended to transfer such rights and liabilities of Government to the said Corporation. On such transfer of rights and liabilities the Corporation has to pay to the State Government in amount equal to the cost or part cost of the scheme transferred as aforesaid. The Government will therefore recoup the expenditure incurred by it on the various schemes so far undertaken by it.- vide Statement of Objects and Reasons.- Mah. 43 of 1976.
Though there was no provision in the Bombay Land Improvement Schemes Act, 1942, for the rules made thereunder to be laid before the houses, as a matter of practice, such rules were usually sent to the Legislature Secretariat for being laid before the State Legislature. The Committee on Subordinate Legislation had recommended that suitable amendment in the Act may be made to make the usual statutory provision laying of the rules before such House of the State Legislature.- vide Statement of Objects and Reasons.- Mah. 26 of 1977.
The Government of Maharashtra had set up a Company called the Maharashtra Land Development Corporation Limited (hereinafter referred to as the M.L.D.C. ) for the purposes of executing and financing land development schemes under the Bombay Land Improvement Schemes Act, 1942, in the commands of the irrigation projects, with the aid of institutional finance. The M.L.D.C. had prepared and forwarded such schemes of the order of Rs. 130 crores to the Agriculture Refinance and Development Corporation (hereinafter referred to as the A.R.D.C. ) for approval and allocation amongst financing institutions. The A.R.D.C. had by then approved schemes involving an outlay of Rs. 24-58 crores. Although the A.R.D.C. had approved these schemes, the scheduled bank have not been able to sanction and disburse regular loans to the M.L.D.C. except interim loans to the extent of Rs. 120 crores only.
It has been noticed that the main difficulty experienced by the scheduled bank was that they have no security for the loans advanced by them, in the absence of a charge or mortgage, and no speedy legal remedies available to them for effecting recovery of loans to be sanctioned by them to the beneficiaries.
Under section 15A of the Act, the first charge on the lands of owners benefited by the schemes vests in the M.L.D.C. and under section I5B, any amount due from them is recoverable as arrears of land revenue. The scheduled banks had been insisting that, when any works are carried out with the help of the loans given by them, the first charge and the facility of recovery of dues as arrears of land revenue should be available to the bank also to enable it to effect recovery of its moneys from the beneficiaries concerned. After the Act was amended for these purposes, the scheduled banks were prepared to release necessary funds.
Many useful schemes prepared by the M.L.D.C. had to be deferred or given up for execution for want of sufficient finance. The interim loans of about Rs. 1.20 crores released by the scheduled banks by then since January, 1979 were subject to the condition that the Act would be suitably amended by Government for purposes stated above within one year, failing which the loans shall be treated as term loans and no further loans may be released by any scheduled bank.
If the Bombay Land Improvement Schemes Act, 1942, was not amended in time as insisted by the scheduled banks, the work of execution of the schemes would not only have been hampered, but would have even come to a stand still. It had thus become necessary to amend the Act immediately to ensure continuous and increasing flow of institutional finance to the M.L.D.C. to enable it to execute the pending and future land development schemes as expeditiously as possible.
As both Houses of the State Legislature were not in session and immediate action was required to be taken to amend the Bombay Land Improvement Schemes Act, 1942, for the purposes as aforesaid, the Bombay Land Improvement Schemes (Amendment) Ordinance, 1979, was promulgated by the Governor of Maharashtra on the 31st December, 1979. The Act is intended to replace the Ordinance by an Act of the State Legislature.- vide Statement of Objects and Reasons.- Mah. 9 of 1980.
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1. The Act was extended to that part of the State of Bombay to which immediately before the commencement of Bom. 30 of 1958, it did not extend (vide Bom. 30 of 1958, section 2).
2. For Statement, see Bombay Government Gazette, 1943, Part IV, p. 44.