In limbo
Failure to get land acquisition and rehabilitation bills passed by Parliament will delay reform
The government’s failure to get land acquisition and rehabilitation bills passed by Parliament before the end of the last session of the 14th Lok Sabha could result in further delay in reforming the outmoded regime on these sensitive and controversial issues. On the other hand, it could prove a boon as the two Bills might well have proved to be ineffective. The twin bills — the Land Acquisition (amendment) Bill, 2007, and the Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2007, were conceived of in order to avoid a repetition of the violent incidents that rocked Nandigram and Singur in the wake of land being acquired for a chemical project and a car plant. The Bills were controversial from the beginning, leading to a review by a parliamentary panel and then by a group of ministers. The final version, passed by the Lok Sabha without debate and in the absence of the Opposition on the penultimate day of the session, got stuck in the Rajya Sabha because of stiff resistance from both the National Democratic Alliance and the Left to their introduction. It is entirely right that such important Bills should face proper parliamentary scrutiny before they become law.
On the positive side, the Bill to replace the antiquated Land Acquisition Act of 1894 sought to balance the need for acquiring land for development with the interests of those whose land is sought to be taken over, and moved the law quite significantly to the side of those being forced to sell their land. Thus, it confined forcible land takeover to just three purposes — strategic use, public infrastructure projects and commercial ventures which are strictly in the public interest, as ascertained through a social audit. It also stuck to the norm (recommended first by this newspaper) that industry would have to commercially buy 70 per cent of the land required for a project before the state government could step in to acquire the rest. Industry has complained in some cases that such a change in the law would have made it difficult to set up new units, because land acquisition would have become next to impossible. However, this is not really true, as the experience with some of the special economic zones shows—land was privately acquired to a substantial degree, without the use of force. It is only in India that the rights of those who own and live on land (usually the poor and marginalised) are given short shrift; around Heathrow and Frankfurt, for instance, local opinion is a significant element in deciding on whether to give approval to the expansion of the airports in these places.
The rehabilitation Bill, too, had some welcome stipulations—like undertaking rehabilitation prior to land takeover, and providing employment or equity participation to the affected families in the industries set up on the acquired land. These criteria sought to deal with two repeated complaints — that rehabilitation schemes often remained on paper, and that those who got money in return for land often squandered it and then had nothing left. It is also the case that the value of land goes up dramatically once its specified end-use is changed, from agricultural to industrial. The benefit from this flows almost entirely to industry. It is only fair that those who did not get any benefit from such change of end use should get an additional benefit, in terms of jobs or shares. Once again, the idea was to shift the balance in favour of those losing their land.
However, there were also problems with the two Bills. For instance, the whole legislative exercise could have proved futile, since the amendments would not have been binding on states as they are free to have their own policies in these areas. Some state governments have already put in place their own land acquisition and rehabilitation policies. Considering this, it would be advisable to let the new government that assumes power after the general elections decide on the best course to be adopted.