Now, Mamata govt to purchase land for infra projects

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The Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal has tweaked its land policy to facilitate execution of critical infrastructure projects. The new policy will allow the government to directly purchase land for state and central government projects, as opposed to the earlier policy of steering clear of facilitating land purchase for central projects.

Though the facilitation by the state would be on a case-to-case basis, it would mean that many of the PSU projects that have been pending due to land problems could be taken up by the state.

The immediate beneficiary of this policy would be border fencing of more than 2,000-km of land along the India-Bangladesh border, which has been stuck due to land unavailability.

The government was considering direct purchase of land for the project on request from the Border Security Force, said government sources.

In February 2016, the West Bengal government allowed projects under state as well as central departments, or their organisations, to go for direct purchase of land, subject to approval from the state government on a case-to-case basis.

The proposal, however, would have to be cleared first by the Standing Committee on Industry, Infrastructure and Employment, after which it would move to the Purchase Committee, according to the government memorandum.

The recent notification adds that development authorities like West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation, Asansol Durgapur Development Authority (ADDA), Burdwan Development Authority (BDA), Haldia Development Authority (HDA) and New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA), among others shall obtain concurrence of the standing committee before initiating direct purchase.

“Direct purchase by the government would not only result in higher prices for land owners but also allow faster implementation of the projects,” sources said.

That may or may not hold water, though. The previous Left Front government, after having burnt fingers in Nandigram and Singur, had tried its hand at direct purchase of land in Kharagpur for Tata Metaliks. Initially, the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) was supposed to invoke the Land Acquisition Act of 1894 to acquire 500 acres for the company. The land agitation movements, however, prompted it to look for an alternative model.

The land requirement was brought down to 300 acres but in the interim land prices increased from Rs 3.5-4.5 lakh per acre to Rs 8-9 lakh per acre by 2009. Still WBIDC managed to purchase 190 acres. The project was still hanging fire.

Consider the case of NTPC’s project in Katwa, Bardhaman. The Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government had provided 556 acres, but the requirement was 900 acres. After the change of regime, the public sector enterprise was told that it would have to purchase the land directly from land losers for the 1600-Mw project. That process finally got going last December.

But there is probably no right model — acquisition or purchase — for land in West Bengal, a bureaucrat pointed out. In Singur and Nandigram, the Left Front government had invoked the Land Acquisition Act to acquire land, which resulted in one of the most violent land agitation movements.

The spectacular success of the Land Reforms movement fragmented the land, bringing the average land holding to less than an acre as against the national average of 1.41 acre. In rural areas, holding land in excess of 24.8 acres requires clearance under Section 14Y of the West Bengal Land and Land Reforms Act, 1955.

Riding on the success of the Singur and Nandigram movements, the Trinamool government has been against forcible land acquisition from the very beginning, a major hindrance for big-ticket investments. Banerjee, however, claims that a land bank of 100,000 acres has been created but that’s spread across 20 districts while big-ticket investments would mostly require large tracts of contiguous land.

SHIFTING GOALPOSTS

• 2006: Mamata leads protest against forcible land acquisition in Singur
   
• 2011: As chief minister, she says no to acquisition of land for industrial projects
   
• 2014: West Bengal government allows direct purchase of land for certain state departments; speeds up clearance for private projects
   
• 2016: Mamata govt allows projects under state and central departments, or their organisations, to go for direct purchase of land, subject to approval on a case-to-case basis