Assam strikes balance on land acquisition

Assam today said despite scarcity of land in the state it could not wash off its hands like West Bengal on the ground that it could not help in land acquisition for private projects.

'West Bengal may wash off its hand and say that it can't help private companies in land acquisition. When we give mega status to a project we lend support for the sake of industrialisation,' Assam Industry minister Pradyut Bordoloi told an interactive session with MCC Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Though land acquisition was done directly with land losers in Congress-ruled Assam, there was a major difference with Trinamool Congress ruled West Bengal.

'Market price of the land is decided by the district administration,' Bordoloi said.

In West Bengal the price has to be negotiated with land owners directly.

Bordoloi said there was a Cabinet sub-committee which looked into issues of conversion of land agriculture to industry and tried to strike a balance.

Assam allowed conversion of agricultural land to industrial for mega projects if acquired directly by the company, he said.

He said that land would remain a concern for every one though the character of the problem could be different.

Meanwhile, Assam was planning to add non-hydel power capacity to meet the hike in power demand by 12 per cent per annum and reduce dependence on hydel generation which was at 60 per cent currently.

Bordoloi said an integrated tea park was also under consideration by the state to allow greater value addition of Assam tea, a major contributor to SGDP which has crossed 6.8 per cent.