land acquisition/sez & displacement – 2011 - Indian Social Institute

production, infrastructure development and services. APIIC bagged three awards under differentcategories. APIIC Vice-Chairaman and Manging Director B R Meena received the award on behalf ofAPIIC. Other prominent SEZ developers like Sri Iity, Phoenix, Divya Shree NSL and DLF also got theaward. Minister for Major Industries Dr J Geetha Reddy and Minister for Information Technology andEndowments Ponnala Laxmahiah also participated in the programme, an official release said here today.(New Kerala 16/11/11)Maharashtra govt to oppose Centre's Land Acquisition Bill (4)Mumbai: The Maharashtra government is set to oppose the Centre’s Land Acquisition Bill, which willremove the state’s role in acquiring land for industrial purposes. Should the proposed central act come in,industrial houses will have to negotiate directly with the farmers and the owners of the land that theyintend to acquire. The industrial houses will need the consent of 80% of the people whose land is to beacquired. This will also be applicable to projects like infrastructure projects. We are going to oppose thisBill since we believe it will harm the interests of all concerned,” said a government official. “First, we arenot in favour of industrial houses going across to farmers directly to acquire land since that can lead tomalpractices and arm-twisting,” he said. The Centre decided to do away with the intermediary role of thestate after the Singur, West Bengal, fiasco where protesting farmers were shot down by the police. Thefarmers were then protesting the acquisition of land by the West Bengal government for the Tatas theplanned Nano project. The farmers killing raised a hue and cry and the Centre soon said it would changethe current Land Acquisition Bill to make it friendlier to those affected by such projects. The biggerconcern is the need to win over the consent of 80% of voters. “This effectively means that a small numberof farmers can always halt any project. How are we to know if this protest is genuine or directed by vestedinterests?” the official asked. There is another concern that any such new law will harm the state’sposition as the leader in industry. By and large, Maharashtra farmers are comparatively prosperous andwhen their land is sought for projects, they demand a very high price, often forcing industrialists to look toother states. For instance, Maruti preferred Gujarat to Maharashtra since a large tract of land wasavailable to it readily. “It is here that the state does have a role to play. The state government needs tohave a role in acquiring land and making it available for industrialists. That is how the state can play a rolein pushing its industrialisation. If this bill goes through, we will be reduced to being spectators and won’tbe able to help our state,” the official said. Yet, the task won’t be easy. Congress general secretary RahulGandhi had spoken out for the Bill that did away with the role of the state. For Maharashtra, the remedymight be worse than ailment, but how dos the state go against its own leader. (DNA 24/11/11)Mindless land acquisition will imperil food security: court (4)New Delhi, November 25, 2011: The Supreme Court has pulled up the State governments for theircallous approach to acquisition of land from farmers and for issuing notifications in violation of theprocedure under the Land Acquisition Act. Decrying mindless acquisitions, a Bench of Justices G.S.Singhvi and S.J. Mukhopadhaya said the consequent notifications were nullified by courts on the groundof violation of the mandatory procedure and rules of natural justice. Writing the judgment, Justice Singhvisaid: “The disposal of cases filed by landowners and others takes some time and the resultant delay hasa great adverse impact on implementation of projects of public importance. Of course, the delay indeciding such cases may not be of much significance when the state and its agencies want to conferbenefit upon private parties by acquiring land in the name of public purpose.” It was difficult to appreciatewhy the state and its instrumentalities “resort to massive acquisition and that too without complying withthe mandate of the statute, the Bench lamented. “As noted by the National Commission on Farmers(NCF), the acquisition of agricultural land in the name of planned development or industrial growth wouldseriously affect the availability of food in future.” After Independence, the administrative apparatus of thestate did not make enough investment in rural areas and “those who have been doing agriculture havenot been educated and empowered to adopt alternative sources of livelihood.” In 1947, Prime MinisterPandit Jawaharlal Nehru said, “Everything else can wait, but not agriculture,” the Bench pointed out. In itsfifth and final report, the NCF headed by M.S. Swaminathan observed that prime land must be conservedfor agriculture and should not be diverted for non-agricultural purposes, or else food availability wouldsuffer in the country, where 60 per cent of the population still depended on agriculture and people livingBelow the Poverty Line were finding it difficult to survive. “Unfortunately, these words of wisdom appear tohave become irrelevant to the state apparatus, which has used the Land Acquisition Act in the last two