A policy that fixes the maximum size of agricultural land that an individual or family can own is called:

A land ceiling is the maximum limit on the amount of agricultural land that an individual or a family can own. Land owned beyond this limit is declared "surplus" and is taken over by the government, usually with compensation, to be distributed among landless labourers and small farmers.

Purpose of land ceiling laws:

• To reduce the concentration of land in the hands of a few large landowners.
• To redistribute surplus land to the landless, especially Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and marginal farmers.
• To reduce rural inequality and poverty.

Land ceiling laws in India:

Land reform is a state subject, so each state passed its own ceiling laws after independence.

In 1972, the central government issued national guidelines to make ceilings more uniform. They set lower limits, roughly 10 to 18 acres for good irrigated land and up to about 54 acres for poor, dry land, for a family of five.

Results:

Ceiling laws were less successful than hoped. Large landowners often avoided them through benami (fictitious name) transfers, transfers to relatives and false claims.

Only a small part of the estimated surplus land was actually declared surplus and distributed.

Other land reform measures in India:

Abolition of intermediaries (zamindari abolition): removed zamindars and other intermediaries between the state and the cultivators. This was the most successful land reform, carried out in the early 1950s.

Tenancy reforms: regulation of rent, security of tenure for tenants and conferring ownership rights on tenants.

Consolidation of holdings (chakbandi): combining a farmer's scattered small plots into one or a few compact blocks, to make farming more efficient. It was successful in Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh.

The Bhoodan movement:

Started by Acharya Vinoba Bhave in 1951 at Pochampally (now in Telangana), it encouraged landowners to donate land voluntarily to the landless. It later developed into the Gramdan movement.

Why not the other options?

• ✗Land consolidation combines scattered plots into compact holdings.
• ✗Tenancy reform protects tenants and regulates rent.
• ✗Zamindari abolition removed intermediaries between the state and the tiller.