Change land acquisition

Change land acquisition
The Economic Times, ET Editorial, September 10, 2009, Page 12

People Must Be Made Stakeholders

LAND acquisition procedures need to undergo drastic change — the point has been underlined yet again by developments at West Bengal’s Vedic Village, as if the developments at Nandigram and Singur were not enough. Offering farmers cash compensation for the land from which they are forcibly uprooted is just not enough. Farmers who lose land and others who derive their living from the land being taken away, even if they do not own it, must become stakeholders in the development that takes place on the land lost to traditional use. Many who are required to give up their land often have no other means of sustenance than the income from the land they hold. And therefore, their resistance to surrendering land, however small a patch it may be, is understandable. Yet, it does not make any sense to keep people engaged in marginal farming while pre-empting industry and services. People have to move out of marginal farming for their standard of living to go up. At the same time, it is not quite possible to shift unskilled farm labour directly to modern manufacturing or services — these activities call for sophisticated skill sets. Also, with greater reliance on capital and machinery, fewer people are required to keep factories running. Hence, reskilling those whose traditional occupations are disrupted by modern development, and organising them into new production units that would deliver the numerous peripheral services required by modern infrastructure and activity, must receive due emphasis.

If the farmer were to gain on a sustained basis from the development that would take place on land sold by him and his neighbours, there would be more willingness on his part to surrender land. That can happen only if the farmer were to get a regular income, say in the form of lease income, as part of the compensation. Such an arrangement can be worked out only if farmers are organised into cooperatives or companies, to continue to part-own the land, perhaps along with the project developer. India is industrialising under conditions of democracy and competitive politics; and this calls for altogether new policies for engaging the owners/users of the land that is being put to non-traditional use.