We need flexible land use policy: Tata

We need flexible land use policy: Tata
The Financial Express, December 22, 2009, Page 20

fe Bureau, Mumbai

Ratan Tata, chairman, Tata Motors, which had to shift production of its Nano car from Singur in West Bengal to Sanand in Gujarat last year after protests over land acquisition, said on Monday that political leaders should strike a balance when it comes to using land for agriculture or for industry.

“Land is a hot issue and it is going to impact projects,” said Tata, whose automotive company pulled out of Singur last October, after months of agitation by farmers. Tata Motors had already pumped in Rs 1,500 crore into the project, and many of its vendors had set up base there. Tata was speaking at the inaugural session of the TiE — The Entrepreneurial Summit 2009 being held here. NR Narayana Murthy, chairman and chief mentor at Infosys Technologies, said infrastructure development could bring about a huge change in the way business is done in India. Stressing the need for more land to do business, he said, “India needs to improve its floor area ratio from the current 1:1 to 1:15”

Moderating a discussion between Tata and Murthy, Shekhar Gupta, editor in chief of The Indian Express, posed the question as to whether they felt land was the least reformed sector, to which Tata replied in the affirmative. Tata said land is an issue even in Japan. To Gupta’s question whether India was headed in the right direction, Murthy replied that though India was headed in the right direction, it needed a flexible labour policy, liberalisation in education and better infrastructure.

Defining the Singur experience as sad and inevitable, Tata said, “A lot of infrastructure projects are impacted due to the conflict of personal interests. The industry faces several issues on land, and these come from individuals who are politically inclined and they exploit the situation.” This is where the government needs to step in to mitigate the negative impact, he said. “More often than not, conflicts related to land are promoted by individuals who do not belong to that land area, but who have other political motives. Leaders need to define and reconcile between cultivated land and industrial land, because agriculture also needs to be efficient. There should be no long-term detriment to the land owner,” he added.

Tata went shared his views on bureaucratic hurdles faced by the industrial sector. “A misinterpretation of the businessmen’s motives by people with ulterior motives can bring out a defensive attitude from the bureaucrats.”

Quoting the examples from developed countries, Tata said it’s easier to bring about an agreement between businessmen on a common platform in other locations. However, in India, it continues to be a challenge. “Infrastructure is a good example where we have seen countries that were way behind us in growth have now grown ...(since) their infrastructure is in place,” Tata said.

Land reforms would also bring about job opportunities in India and take it to the next level of growth. “Given that India wants to create job opportunities for not-so-educated people, it is going to be in the non-technology sectors like manufacturing where we need a lot of land,” Tata added.