Land acquisiton

In the past three years, protests by farmers against land acquisition have roiled over 40 districts spread over 17 states. Nearly 10 crore people reside in these troubled districts. What is at stake is nearly 4 lakh acres of land, most of it fertile and under cultivation. In all these hotspots, farmers have taken to the streets, or fields, in large numbers, often clashing with the police. Dozens have lost their lives and hundreds injured, as shown recently in Bhatta Parsaul in Greater Noida. In many places, projects are stalled or inching ahead under heavy armed guard. There is a persistent disconnect between the government, and the companies that want land on the one hand, and the land-owning farmers on the other. And, there is no end in sight. In several states, gigantic plans have been drawn up to acquire more land, although current protests have slowed things a bit. In Andhra for e.g, 12 lakh acres of land is proposed to be acquired according to reports. Karnataka too reportedly has grand plans of acquiring 2 lakh acres in the coming years. Orissa and Jharkhand have respectively signed 49 and 60 MoUs with mining companies and an unspecified amount of land acquisition is on the cards. Till three years ago, the main thrust of land acquisition was for setting up SEZs and some mining hubs. In 2008, 92,000 acres was mired in protests and disputes, affecting over 5 lakh people. An estimated Rs 2.4 lakh crore worth projects were affected, mainly in steel, aluminium, power and mining. The economic recession and widespread outrage at the heavy-handed attempts to buy land at paltry prices led to a slowdown. Many cases of de-notification of SEZ lands are now turning up as firms fail to find buyers. In the current round, infrastructure appears to be the thrust, although the mining boom continues. Power plants of all three kinds — thermal, hydel and nuclear — dominate land acquisition moves in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh (with downstream protests in Assam). Expressways and freight corridors are the cause of land protests in UP. In Orissa and Jharkhand land is being demanded for industrial parks. In most states, but especially close to metropolitan hubs like Delhi, land acquisition for whatever purpose includes lucrative residential zones, as recently seen in Greater Noida. Why can’t this incendiary situation be resolved? In 2007, the Centre attempted to replace the obsolete land acquisition law, which allows the government to acquire land for “public purpose” at cheaper rates and which was the cause of much anger among duped farmers who would see their land being further sold by the government at 8 to 10 times the price. But the new law never got through Rajya Sabha. In 2009, President Pratibha Patil in her address to the new Lok Sabha announced that it would be reintroduced. The amendment to the existing land acquisition law was accompanied by a rehabilitation and resettlement policy. The package proposed only 30% of land would be acquired by the government while the balance would have to be negotiated by buyers directly with the farmers. It was suggested farmers should be given the option of getting 20% of the compensation in the form of debentures in the company. Meanwhile several new ‘models’ of sweetening the deal for angry farmers have emerged. The SC, which has been petitioned in several cases, suggested that gram sabhas should be involved failing which no land should be acquired. Haryana announced a new deal in which higher compensation rates, a minimum floor rate, a 33-year inflation linked royalty, and a job were offered. In West Bengal, after the bitter experience of Singur and Nandigram, the erstwhile Left government had offered a new deal for Sunderbans farmers which included compensation for both registered and unregistered sharecroppers. Plus, work for 340 days under the employment guarantee scheme and houses under the Indira Awas Yojana would be given to them. The bottomline is even today, after nearly a decade of land protests, there is no clear policy either in law or in practice. As a result, farmers, already weighed down by unremunerative agriculture, are torn between losing their land and making ends meet.