The government in India is trying to pass an ordinance which would alter the structure of the 2013 act-The right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill (LARR Act). The said act was passed unanimously by the parliament with support from all major parties only for BJP to change its tune after coming to power. Their support for the bill then was a blatant election tactic to get votes and the current ordinance is to appease their corporate sponsors. They have made eleven amendments to the ordinance and have passed it through Lok Sabha tonight after meeting resistance from all quarters. Now they have to pass the same in Rajya Sabha where they don't have majority. Amendments might be just a tactic to provide leeway for those who opposed the ordinance, several allies like Shiva Sena included, to change their stand.
Govt to bring 11 amendments in Land Acquisition Bill | Business Standard News: http://t.co/Uz3tPmixT9 #LandAcquisitionBill #LandGrabBill
— Tom Babu (@Tom_Babu) March 10, 2015
The main sticking point with the ordinance is its handling of Social Impact Assessment (SIA) in the LARR Act. It has created a set of projects for which SIA will be not required but the wording is such that almost all the projects can come under its ambit. The SIA requires among other things 70% of consent from the land owners for government projects and it is 80% for private projects. They have included things like Industrial Corridors under these exclusions which is ridiculous since most of the companies that operate in it will be private ones and industrial corridor can include vast tracts of land. You need only to look at the announcement of corridors like Delhi-Mumbai Industrial corridor and Mumbai-Bangalore corridor to get a sense of that term. The amendments that they have introduced today include limiting the applicable land to 1 km form either side of the highway, which is not really much of a change since that in itself would be the sort of land that would be of interest.
My biggest gripe is with doing away of consent part. You may dilute it to 51% or so but SIA should happen, terms of which can be negotiated further in Parliament. The relation between the state and the land owner is extremely asymmetric. The ordinance in effect enables the state to grab land for itself or for the companies as long as they can include the purpose of the acquisition to be in the excluded categories. It promises payment of up to four times the land value but the problem in India is that most of the land value in paper are severely understated because of the high taxation for land transactions. Most of these transactions are done with black money because of the same reason and conversely that is why so much black money is involved with real estate. In most cases the paper value shown will be around one-tenth of the actual value which makes the four times land value payment no good, especially if your consent is not required. This will also lead to excess land being acquired than what is required, which can be later used for commercial purposes.
I do recognize the original LARR act could very well be unworkable and too demanding for the infrastructure needs of the country. But solution to that is not the introduction of a draconian act which can enable the state to act as a tyrant to its citizens. India is in a very difficult situation of needing tremendous improvement in infrastructure under a democratic set-up. Countries like US went through this process in a very un-democratic manner during its development, as we know during its westward expansion. If you take recent examples of countries like South Korea and China, they were/are also under authoritarian regimes when the development took place. The hypocrisy shown by city dwelling aspirational class is pathetic. These would be the same people who would take a NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) stand if a Metro project were to require a piece of their land. I want development, but not at the cost of my rights and freedom.
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