Land acquisition, R&R Bills run into Mamata hurdle

Land acquisition, R&R Bills run into Mamata hurdle
Business Standard, July 2, 2009, Page 6

Saubhadro Chatterji / New Delhi

Both the Bills have been pending in Parliament for approval.

Railway Minister and leader of Trinamool Congress Mamata Banerjee may force the government to redraft the much-delayed Rehabilitation and Resettlement (R&R) Bill 2007 and the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill, which spell out the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s policy on land acquisition.

Both the Bills have been pending in Parliament for approval and form the lynchpin for faster industrialisation. Several large industrial projects, such as integrated steel plants by ArcelorMittal and Tata Steel and an aluminium complex by Posco, have run into problems as a result of controversies over land acquisition.

Banerjee could not raise these objections during the tenure of the first UPA as her party was not a member of the government then. When the Trinamool Congress became a UPA ally in its second term — it is the second-largest ally with 19 seats — Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had asked Banerjee to set out her ‘opinion’ to both the issues.

The Trinamool Congress wants sweeping changes in the Bill. Not only does the party want “land banks” to be created by all state governments, it also wants farmers to have the legal right to get back their land if the proposed project is not set up on the acquired land.

“My leader will spell out the party’s stand to the prime minister on these issues. But as a political worker I feel farmers should have legal rights to get back their land if it is not used for the proposed project,” Adhikary told Business Standard.

The Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill, 2007 seeks to amend the original 1894 Act for the acquisition of land for public purposes and for companies undertaking projects.

The pending amendment to the Land Acquisition Act allows the government to acquire a residual 30 per cent of the land required for an industrial project for reasons of contiguity provided the private party buys 70 per cent of the land first.

Adhikary bluntly rules out this formula and insists there should be a provision to ensure that the purchase of land by the private players is done in a “transparent manner”.

“There are several instances where the private parties have bought land by intimidating or pressuring people. This can’t be allowed,” he said.

Banerjee has reaped big political dividends from anti-land acquisitions agitations for industrial projects. The first of these was in Nandigram, a three-hour drive from Kolkata, where her party’s fierce opposition to land acquisition for a chemical hub forced the Left Front government to relocate the plant. Last year, her party led a protest in Singur, an hour’s drive from Kolkata, where Tata Motors was to set up its Nano small car project. Trinamool’s central demand was that land acquired from unwilling farmers be returned to them. That campaign not only forced Ratan Tata to relocate the project to Gujarat, but her party won 19 seats out of 42 in West Bengal in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, inflicting the left Front’s worst election record since it came to power.

Adhikary said the Trinamool Congress will also vehemently oppose “any industry on multi-crop land”. “We can’t allow industrialization of multi-crop land. It involves India’s food security and also the agriculture sector needs to be strengthened,” he said.

On the issue of “land banks” by state governments, the Trinamool Congress will cite the examples of Gujarat and Maharashtra and say that states need to identify the land for industry first before setting up new industry.

“After making a land map, the local people should be consulted and only if there is a consensus should the government go ahead and acquire the land,” Adhikary said.