Madhya Pradesh farmers to be stakeholders in companies acquiring their land

After considering investors’ and farmers’ problems in land acquisition in the last four sessions of investors’ review meet, the state government is planning to make new provisions to ensure that farmers, who surrender their arable land for industries, will have a stake in those company. State government also said, it will form State Industry Security Force. The force, however, will be available for industries on demand.

The state is likely to launch a land acquisition policy soon. The draft of the policy is ready and a final discussion is awaited.

State Chief Secretary Avani Vaish admitted, his four session of investment review has indicated, the investors are facing some problems in land acquisition. “As our chief minister wants farmers’ interests to be protected and investment process to not be hampered, we are going to do a balancing act. However, everything will be under the ambit of existing Land Acquisition Act,” Vaish said.

However, a well-placed source in the government informed Business Standard, “The state government will make provisions, by launching a new land acquisition policy, so that farmers will have a stake in the company. The draft of the policy is ready but some finer points are yet to be discussed. The policy may come up within 15 days to a month”.

In a review meeting last week, few investors raised the issue of security particularly in Naxal affected areas like the Singrauli district. “The state government said it hasn’t consider security threat earlier but can’t ignore an important issue like security,” said an investor whose company has committed an investment of Rs 50,000 crore in the area.

On formation of the state industrial security force, Vaish said, “We have no Naxalite issue across the state but we will form State Industrial Security Force”.

The state government last week appointed an IPS rank official as additional managing director of Madhya Pradesh State Industries Development Corporation to handle the security related issues.