Gandhinagar: Overhauling a seven-decade-old land law, Gujarat assembly on Friday unanimously passed a bill providing for regularisation of all violations of the state’s land fragmentation law since 1948 without any penalty or premium.Gujarat Prevention of Fragmentation and Consolidation of Holdings (Amendment) Bill, 2026, also sets a uniform minimum standard area of 10 gunthas (1,012 sq m) across rural areas. The bill removes municipal and urban development authority areas from the law’s purview.Presenting the bill on Friday, the last day of the assembly’s three-day session, minister Rushikesh Patel said the amendments would provide relief to lakhs of farmers and landowners by clearing long-pending title issues and ending years of litigation over fragmented land holdings.Under the amendment, violations from 1948 to March 31, 2026, will be regularised without recovery of any penalty or premium.Govt had promulgated an ordinance to this effect earlier this year, and the bill now gives it statutory backing.Municipal corporation areas, municipality areas, and areas under urban development authorities will no longer fall within the purview of the act. Govt said this move is expected to ease land transactions and construction-related processes. Moreover, NA (non-agricultural) conversion — legally changing land use for non-farming purposes — will become easier.Patel said the earlier system often left bona fide purchasers in legal limbo even after paying a penalty equivalent to 10% of the jantri value, with transactions still treated as invalid.Another key change is the introduction of the uniform 1,012 sq m (10-guntha) standard area for rural Gujarat. Earlier, the permissible size of a fragment varied and depended on a host of confusing factors, such as whether the land was irrigated, unirrigated, or horticultural.
