Q&A: Ajit Singh, President, Rashtriya Lok Dal

'Govt has no business to act as a real estate agent'

Western Uttar Pradesh leader and president of the Rashtriya Lok Dal, AJIT SINGH, has inherited a place in Jat politics, because of his father, former Prime Minister Charan Singh, one of India’s best known farmer-politicians. He tells Sreelatha Menon land acquisition policies need to be rationalised. Edited excerpts:

What is your main concern on the Yamuna Expressway?
No one is opposed to the Expressway except regarding the right compensation. If the government is paying Noida farmers '800 per sq metre, the market rate is '30,000 to '50,000 per sq metre. That is a separate issue. What we oppose and won’t allow is the industrial project that is to come up alongside the Expressway under Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority. We are going to court against it and will not allow acquisition of land for it, at least in fertile areas where four crops are being cultivated.

How much land is required for the YEIDA project?
The Mayawati government said on the floor of the Assembly on August 12 that it would require 208,465.126 hectares. The Expressway needed 1,546 hectares, while the Hi Tech cities needed 2,500 hectares.

You have said 30 per cent of land in the state will be acquired soon for expressways, industries and housing. What will be the impact on food production?
There are, in all, eight expressway projects announced by the state government and if one were to extrapolate figures available for the Yamuna Expressway, about 7.2 villages lie per km and thus 25 per cent of all land would be acquired. Additionally, land acquired for housing and government purposes would be another five per cent. UP grows 47 per cent of all the potatoes India has. About 25 per cent comes from this stretch. That would be gone. The same applies to sugar.

Do you feel the need for a law to block diversion of farmland?
The existing Land Acquisition Act does not allow acquisition of fertile land. But people get false certificates to show that land is fallow. We feel there should be road blocks for acquiring farm land, similar to those for getting forest land. The land acquisition law should be renamed land preservation law, if food security has to be maintained.

Will the government succeed in moving the land acquisition Bill this year?
They are committed to it. I have called an all-party meeting and I am trying to build consensus. Parties have anyway united on the farmers’ issue in Tappal and earlier on the sugarcane farmers’ issue.

Do you think the government should interfere in land acquisition by industry?
When you have liberalised everything, why should government have powers to acquire farmland any time it wants and not even give farmers market rates? The Haryana government model, which is being praised so much, is again questionable. Why has 12,000 hectares been given to Ambani? Government has no business to act as a real estate agent. If today you are taking land for '100 per sq metre, when you make it commercial it costs '5,000 per sq metre. So, farmers should get the price on the basis of the intended use.

In Shahjahanpur district, land is being taken for the Ambani power plant many years after this was notified.
That is the case in Meerut, too, where the government notified 1,191 villages about 20 years before and is acquiring them now. The same may be the case with Shahjahanpur. We have proposed in a private member’s Bill moved by my son that land, once notified, must be acquired within five years and compensation should be at market rates.