 "Bihar govt not to acquire agricultural land")
According to the officials, state government has already issued orders to all District Magistrates (DM) in this regard. "More than 80 percent of people in state are dependent on agriculture and allied activities for their livelihood," said one such official on the condition of anonymity, "and so land is very important for them. In this situation, we cannot take away their only source of income. Therefore, we have decided to not to acquire agriculture land under this scheme."
The state government will now acquire barren land and government holdings for this purpose. "We asked our officials to focus on fallow or barren land. However, land will be acquired only after the approval of landowners and they will be given more than market price as compensation. Apart from this, there is a huge chunk of unused land in the state, which belongs to the state government. We have decided use them in a better manner," said the official.
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The state government has order its officers to set up work on land bank project and complete it on priority. The official said, "We asked district administrations to complete this project as soon as possible. We need land for various development schemes. We need land to construct new school buildings, to provide people drinking water, for sewage treatment plants and many other schemes, which are stalled due to unavailability of land."
State government is also planning to give some of its land to small and medium industrial units to provide better employment opportunities to the rural population.
The state government has initiated this scheme almost 2 years ago. Under this scheme, it has decided to set up a land bank of 100 acres in every district for industrial purpose.
However, the scheme was later put on backburner due to initial hiccups. But, early this year the state government decided to revive this scheme to resolve its own land problems.