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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Behind the curve

Behind the curve

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published Published on Nov 11, 2010   modified Modified on Nov 11, 2010

In the first week of September, two things happened in western Uttar Pradesh. The first is that a township that was supposed to be constructed in Aligarh district as part of the Yamuna Expressway project was scrapped. The second was that the UP government announced a revised compensation scheme for the acquisition of land. And now, more than two months later, that bears fruit: the township is back on, and the local farmers who are selling their land will benefit from the new policy. This is a reminder of the fact that the resistance to land acquisition across India is not necessarily a resistance to the idea of losing land; it is to the perception that the process available to, and the compensation offered to, those selling land is haphazard and unfair.

The UP government figured this out well ahead of the curve. It used the protests in August from some farmers affected by the Expressway as a political peg to move the compensation debate to a new level. The policy it announced had, for example, a yearly payment component, something Haryana, too, has tried with success. First of all, the base price would be settled through negotiation, not through fiat. Second, the farmer would be offered Rs 20,000 per acre for 33 years after acquisition (increased by Rs 600 per acre every year). The options wouldn’t stop there: they would also be able to access, if they preferred, a one-time payment of Rs 2.4 lakh per acre. Providing farmers with options and keeping the door to negotiations open, isn’t that what political solutions are about? The UP government certainly thought so, even as the other political players in Western UP took one badly-thought out position after another on the acquisition protests. Indeed, a day after Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi visited Aligarh to meet farmers, UP Chief Minister Mayawati released a statement saying that “those politicians who are busy undertaking trips to Aligarh with the obvious intent of politicising the issue, should ask the Central government to amend the archaic Land Acquisition Act of 1894, if they were truly interested in the well-being of farmers.”

A new land acquisition act is part of the agenda for this session of Parliament. The Trinamool Congress has previously blocked its discussion, but has nuanced that stance recently. The states, especially UP, are moving forward. The Centre must, too.


The Indian Express, 11 November, 2010, http://www.indianexpress.com/news/behind-the-curve/709373/


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