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Notice (8): Undefined variable: urlPrefix [APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp, line 8]latest-news-updates/the-land-question-8036.html"/> LATEST NEWS UPDATES | The land question | Im4change.org
Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

The land question
-The Business Standard
 
Land acquisition for non-agricultural purposes is one of the oldest policy challenges that modern governments have faced. It is, therefore, not surprising that it has become a major political issue in India as urbanisation spreads, new industries grow and major infrastructure development takes place. To imagine that complex political challenges faced in widely varying agrarian, social and economic contexts can be suitably addressed by one common national law is a flight of fancy of which both policy makers and social activists at the all-India level seem to be equally guilty. Merely because a colonial government had enacted a countrywide law in 1894 does not mean that a “central” government in a federal democracy can arrogate to itself the right to impose a nationwide policy without factoring in regional variations in the political, social and economic situation. Therefore, the anti-establishment voices of the National Advisory Council (NAC) are as off the mark as the establishment voices of the Government of India in the latest attempt to draw up a nationally acceptable land acquisition law. The best option for the central government is to draw up a model law and allow state governments to legislate local variations of it. Land is a local issue. It is up to state governments to attract investment in manufacturing and infrastructure by adopting appropriate laws for the acquisition of privately owned agricultural land.

The principles laid down by the NAC as the ones that should guide any legislation on land acquisition are well taken. Surely no democracy can accept “forced displacement” (as does happen in China) so the NAC is right to make this a basic requirement of any new law. Minimising any adverse impact on people, habitats, environment, biodiversity and food security, including discouraging the acquisition of agricultural land, is a good goal, even if a nebulous one. In the case of large projects, the principles of correctly identifying project-affected people, of providing just compensation and rehabilitation packages, which are sensitive to the aspirations, culture, community, natural resource base and skill base of the affected people and ensuring humane, participatory and transparent processes and the like are all valid objectives. However, for smaller projects in which industrial units seek land in tens of acres rather than thousands, these criteria may be far too daunting or difficult to deal with. The NAC is also right to conclude that merely getting the government in as an intermediary doesn’t ensure fairness or transparency if governments have been captured by vested interests (was that not Mamata Banerjee’s entire argument?) So, though the NAC is right to say that the existing land acquisition law has been quite hostile to the interests of the landowner since it attempts to coercively make land available to government at a minimal price, coercion is not the preserve of governments. In Tamil Nadu, members of the erstwhile ruling DMK are alleged to have amassed massive tracts of land around the state using state power indirectly. The role of private mafia is well known. In Hyderabad, both political and mafia power have been used by politicians from both the Telugu Desam Party and the Congress to forcibly acquire land from even middle-class owners. All these challenges cannot be legislated away by a new law in New Delhi. What India needs is greater transparency in land delineation and greater protection to small landowners. Once this can be assured, the market should be allowed a larger role than the government in the actual transaction.