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In Sikandarpur Narkatra village of Hardoi district, Uttar Pradesh, gloom hangs over the house of Kallu. The family has still not been able to forget the morning of December 21, 2025, when Kallu received information that the body of his son Rajkumar was hanging from a tree in a field adjacent to the village.
Kallu curses the day when the government started chakbandi in their village. Chakbandi refers to the process of rearranging small, scattered agricultural holdings to reduce land fragmentation, promote mechanisation of agriculture for increasing yield, improve irrigation facilities, road network and public infrastructure.
Kallu says that land consolidation started in his village a year ago, but irregularities in the process led to his son’s death. “Our land allocation changed four times. The last time we were allotted a field and went there to sow, a village resident named Tejpal stopped us, claiming ownership of the land.” A day before his death, Raju had gone to complain to Tejpal, but he never returned, Kallu adds. Other village residents, such as Kamlesh, also complain about problems in the process.
Land consolidation was started in Uttar Pradesh in 1954 in Muzaffarnagar and Sultanpur districts, un-der the Uttar Pradesh Consolidation of Holdings Act, 1953. After initial success, the scheme was extend-ed to the entire state in 1958. As per the consolidation department’s website, 100,059 villages were covered in the first phase while 23,781 villages have been covered in the second cycle, which is still ongoing.
Land fragmentation increases naturally due to population growth and economic pressures. In India, small and marginal land holdings (of less than 2 hectares, or ha) account for 86.2 per cent of all operational holdings, shows Agriculture Census 2021-22. With plots being divided among family members across generations, the size of holdings keeps shrinking. Especially troublesome is the increase in number of holdings smaller than 1 ha or 0.5 ha. As per a survey by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, the average landholding for farming decreased from 1.08 ha in 2016-17 to 0.74 ha in 2021-22. The fragmentation …
This article was originally published in the April 16-30, 2026 print edition of Down To Earth