With the government on back foot in Parliament over the land acquisition bill, Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday hit out at the industry asking them to stop cutting corners when it comes to paying up farmers during land acquisition.
Even as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) abstained from decreasing the repo rate, Gadkari admitted that no infrastructure can be constructed with 12-13 per cent of interest cost.
Gadkari present on the occasion to address the national conference of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on “Building India: A Shared Responsibility”, took on the industry over their unwillingness to pay up farmers the appropriate amount. He said that sometimes he was surprised as to how the concerned companies did not say anything when bank interests increased by even 2 per cent but tried hard instead to get land deals at cheaper rates.
“Even if the project is of Rs 10,000 crore and the cost of land is just Rs 25 crore, the company tries hard to get that land in Rs 10 crore or Rs 15 crore,” said Gadkari.
Saying that he himself is farmer, he added: “You may not like what I am saying but if you are willing to pay for everything than why you are doing such injustice to farmers when it comes to paying for the land”.
He further went on to say that even if the industry starts paying a little more to farmers, it will also save the amount incurred due to interest cost and escalation cost which the company used to pay earlier due to land acquisition delay.
This statement from Gadkari has come out at a time when Opposition parties are mounting the pressure on government to shed its “pro-corporate” agenda and make many more amendments to the land acquisition bill to address farmer issues.
On the point of high interest cost for infrastructure projects, Gadkari expressed his helplessness asking the industry to approach Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and tell him that no infrastructure can be constructed with a 12-13 per cent of interest cost.
“Such interest rates do not exist in any other country and we need to find out a solution as soon as possible,” he said.
He admitted being in touch with many foreign pension funds that are willing to give loan at low interest rates.
Hitting out at the cement companies for cartelization, he said that they deserved to be fined for such exploitation. “We decided to make cement-concrete roads recently. From the very next day, cement companies increased the selling price of one cement bag from Rs 300 to Rs 350,” he said.
“There is a case in Supreme Court, where these companies were fined (by Competition Commission of India) for Rs 6,000 crore; I firmly believe that they should be fined,” he added.
