Tamil Nadu shows the way in land acquisition

Whose land is it anyway? After the storm of protests in Bhatta-Parsaul in the last few weeks, the land question that came into focus with Singur and Nandigram has acquired a new urgency. The Union government has promised to introduce an amended law in the monsoon session that would set out rules for acquisition of land.

The Land Acquisition (Amendment) bill and the legislation on resettlement and rehabilitation of the displaced, both in the final stages of drafting at the Union Rural Development Ministry, are expected to incorporate farmer-friendly provisions. These include flexibility in fixing land rates after factoring in prices prevailing in adjoining areas and providing employment to project-displaced persons.

With industrialisation only expected to accelerate in future, one experience the policy makers can learn from is that of Tamil Nadu, one of the most industrialised states in the country and host to several multinational companies. Until now, the state has not witnessed any major protest against land acquisition.

The reasons: for one, the state government negotiates with the land owners instead of using the Land Acquisition Act to acquire land. Second, mostly only non-agricultural land has been used for industrialisation.

According to Sunil Rallan, president, Tamil Nadu Association of SEZ Infrastructure Developers (Tasid), this was mainly because the needs of the landowners are kept in mind and most of the industrialisation happened on waste land. The extent of wasteland which can be utilised for industrial development in the state is estimated at 2.41 million hectares.

In the Sriperumbudur-Oragadam belt, over 22 'Fortune 500' companies including Renault Nissan, Daimler, Hyundai, Nokia, Caterpillar, Dell, Samsung, Flextronics, Foxconn, Saint Gobain, have set up shop. Investments worth Rs 30,000-35,000 crore were made in this belt alone. But till now, not even one major issue around land acquisition was reported, as most of it was acquired by the State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu (Sipcot).

Compare this with Singur where, for Tata's Nano project, it was reported that 400 acres of land was acquired from unwilling farmers. In Nandigram, 10,000 acres of land was involved, with potential displacement of thousands living there.

The only exception is Tata's Rs 2,300-crore titanium dioxide project, for which an MoU was signed in 2002 with the Tamil Nadu government. But the project never took off due to problems with land acquisition. In this case, industry sources feel it had more to do with local politics and industry pressure.

Rallan said the other interesting fact about Tamil Nadu was that 70 per cent of the SEZs would be located 200-500 km away from the main cities, mostly in Tier-2 and Tier-3 towns, while about 25 per cent would be in the 80 km radius of the main city.

In Tamil Nadu, industrialisation is mostly happening in five districts of Kanchipuram, Tiruvannamalai, Tirunelveli, Tuticorin and Krishnagiri. All these districts are mostly non-agricultural land, added N NR Saravanan, vice president, Tasid, and general manager, Syntel Ltd, which is setting up its centres at Siruseri and Tirunelveli SEZs.

If private power producers are expected to generate some 120,000 MW, it would take around 90,000-110,000 acres of land. As power generation projects require larger land parcels of at least 0.8-0.9 acre for every 1 MW generated, parts of the state could offer a base.

Several coal-based power generation projects are in the process of investing around Rs 42,000 crore in Tuticorin district, where the extent of forest land is 11,012 hectares, or 2.47 per cent of its total area of 459,054 hectares. The district administration hopes Tuticorin would emerge as the power generation hub of the country given that it is one of the driest parts of the state and unsuitable for any other purpose.