A Bill that allows land-grabbing

True to its pursuit of neo-liberal reforms, the government is reportedly set to overrule some of the key suggestions of the Parliamentary panel that recently recommended some drastic changes to the contentious Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill. With a view to promoting judicious and prudent management of land, the most scarce natural resource and a cause for serious socio-economic unrest, the panel had recommended drastic restrictions to its acquisition, including the caveat that such acquisition cannot be done for any ‘for-profit enterprise’. Private players and public-private partnerships would have to buy land in the open market, if their ventures involve any element of profit.

The panel also wanted all social and infrastructure projects to be routed through State governments, which can decide on the market value to be offered to farmers and villagers whose land is acquired. Uniform relief and rehabilitation packages should not be imposed upon them. The panel wanted all acquisitions to be handled in close consultation with the local gram sabha and panchayat.

SUGGESTIONS DILUTED

Overturning the panel’s recommendations, the Bill, the Centre intends to table in the Monsoon Session of Parliament, retains the clause on acquiring land for ‘for-profit enterprises’. The Government is also widening the ambit of “public purpose”, enabling it to buy land for production of goods and services for social and physical infrastructure and human development projects, indicating that land can be acquired for ‘industrialisation’ and ‘urbanisation’.

There have been conflicts galore in acquiring land for public and private purposes. If governments today are unable to acquire land even for core infrastructure and public projects, it is a problem of their own making.

The root cause is the UPA Government’s cavalier policy on special economic zones, linked to 100 per cent FDI in real estate. This led to an unabated land-hunt for speculation, and creation of fancy townships, resulting in skyrocketing prices that skewed the land market, triggered inflation and created a huge black economy. The biblical adage — ‘they who sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind’ — had come true in a short time.

The original draft Bill of 2011 sought to gloss it over by using bombastic words: “Infrastructure across the country must expand rapidly. Industrialisation, especially based on manufacturing, has also to accelerate. Urbanisation is inevitable.

Land is an essential requirement for all these processes. Government also needs to acquire land for a variety of public purposes.”

Then it became condescending: “In every case, land acquisition must take place in a manner that fully protects the interests of land-owners and also of those whose livelihoods depend on the land being acquired.” The Draft Bill sought to balance the need for facilitating land acquisition and the interests of farmers and villagers whose land is being acquired by making them ‘partners in development.’

NATURE OF ‘DEVELOPMENT’

But the words ‘development’ ‘industrialisation’ and ‘urbanisation’ were not defined anywhere in the Bill, and it is not known as to what kind of ‘development’ for which land will be compulsorily acquired. Is it for ‘constructive’ or ‘destructive’ development?

As of now, most development projects are destructive in nature — denuding forests to promote mining, devastating farmlands to build townships, destabilising agriculture to form SEZs and ravaging coasts to construct ports and power plants! Besides, these terms could be subject to discretionary and discriminatory interpretations.

Applicability of the law extends to Central and State Governments acquiring land for their own use, to hold and to control with the ultimate intent of transferring it to private companies for a stated public purpose (including PPP projects), and for immediate and declared use by private companies for public purpose.

The words ‘hold and to control’ are ominous and is likely to give unfettered power to government authorities to compulsorily acquire vast tracts of land, hold them for some time and then pass it on to ‘industrialists’ and real estate developers after seeking rent from windfall gains.

Almost all land acquisition imperatives given in the Draft Bill are project-oriented, both public and private. Unfortunately, the most primary violation in such projects takes place in the way these are planned and implemented.

The fact is that living, sentient human beings with rights and freedoms in theory inhabit the specific parts of the land that the authorities, in their wisdom, consider suitable for other purposes/projects. For the planners and decision-makers, land is seen simply as property and those owning the land are mere impediments.

PEOPLE’S RIGHTS

In the event, vague statements like ‘minimum displacement’, ‘minimum disturbance to infrastructure, ecology and minimum adverse impact on individuals affected’ are highly subjective, left open-ended and do not carry conviction. For instance, what is the “minimum” displacement in forests and regarding damage to rivers how much is ‘minimum’?

The proposed Bill is anchored on the legal fiction of ‘eminent domain’ — an inherent right of the state, an essential incident of its sovereignty, to take private property for public use — and strikes at the very root of the ongoing democratic struggle mostly centreed on land. This is untenable.

There is also the larger question of sovereignty. In a democracy people are sovereign, not governments. People’s sovereignty gives them the right and freedom to possess and retain a place to live in security and dignity.

The proposed changes will need the concurrence of all Ministries concerned. This could land the government in trouble, given how politically explosive the issue of land acquisition is, coupled with the compulsions of coalition politics. Instead of adopting such a confrontationist approach, a better course for the government would be stringent land-use-cum management at all levels, not free-wheeling acquisition of this most scarce of natural resources.

(The author is an economist - administrator.)

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