Land-use Policy in India is a policy framework and a concept that guides the sustainable management and allocation of the nation's finite land resources. Its central goal is to balance the competing demands of agriculture, environment, infrastructure, and urban development without compromising the land's long-term productive capacity. The government established the National Land Use and Conservation Board in 1985 to define a national policy, with a significant framework being the National Land Utilisation Policy (NLUP) of 2013. This policy was necessitated by the post-independence challenges of rapid urbanisation, industrialisation, and extensive land degradation, which threatened food and water security.
The mechanism of the NLUP is to serve as a guiding framework for states, which have the primary authority over land management under Entry No. 18 of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution. It works by mandating the identification of six types of Land Utilisation Zones (LUZs), such as Predominantly Rural and Agricultural Areas and Predominantly Ecological Areas, to minimise land use conflicts. Key provisions include protecting prime agricultural land from non-agricultural encroachment and promoting sustainable practices like afforestation and soil conservation to counter the estimated 120.7 million hectares of degraded land.
This policy framework connects to several related concepts and acts, including the Forest Conservation Act (which restricts the diversion of forest land) and the Digital India Land Records Modernization Programme (DILRMP), which digitises land records to improve transparency. A recent change involves the deregulation of land conversion permits at the state level. For instance, the Andhra Pradesh Agricultural Land Conversion Act was amended in 2018 to allow the payment of a conversion tax to serve as deemed permission, streamlining the process.