The state government found itself in a quandary in the assembly over alleged irregularities in leasing out of land to industries as the Opposition created a ruckus on the matter, accusing the government of land grabbing from innocent people.
The Opposition also attacked the government for considerable shrinkage in cultivable area in the state in the past five years owing to increasing diversion of land for non-farm activities.
Area under cultivation in the state has dipped by 117,000 hectares during 2005-10 as land put to non-agricultural use rose by 299,000 hectares in the same period, according to the latest report (civil) of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) for the year ended March 31, 2011.
Opposition Chief Whip Prasad Harichandan said, “The government has handed over 50,276.88 acres of land including 33,355.12 acres of acquired private land to 107 companies for setting up of industries in 16 districts.”
He took swipe at the government for misusing emergency provisions under Land Acquisition Act-1894 to acquire land for six industrial promoters.
“This government is exploiting innocent land owners and virtually grabbing land from them at the behest of industries,” he alleged.
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“The CAG also states the then Kalahandi collector had issued an order to bar sale of land in 18 villages under Kalahandi district. The order was meant to facilitate land acquisition for Vedanta Aluminium Ltd (VAL). The question arises as to how can the government issue such a ban. This is illegal and unconstitutional,” Harichandan said.
Responding to allegations, minister for revenue & disaster management S N Patra said, “First of all, the findings of CAG would have to be discussed threadbare by the Public Accounts Committee of the state assembly headed by the Leader of Opposition (Bhupinder Singh). Thereafter, the state government can offer its views.”
To probe into alleged irregularities in land allotment, the department has constituted a special cell, consisting of experts, Patra said.
The minister informed 242,519 acres of government land was found to be encroached and to free the land, 326,447 cases were lodged under Orissa Prevention of Land Encroachment Act. Of this, 181,447 cases have been settled and 91,734 acres of land have been freed from encroachment.
The CAG in its latest report had rapped the state revenue department for acquiring land for these industries by invoking emergency provisions without fulfilling the conditions prescribed under Land Acquisition Act-1894.
An audit scrutiny of these land acquisition cases reveals that 4967.08 acres of land valued at Rs 165 crore (approximate present market value Rs 901.30 crore) were acquired between July 2002 and March 2011 for establishment of industries by six promoters- Aditya Aluminium Ltd (Sambalpur)-2021.41 acres, Bhusan Power & Steel Ltd (Sambalpur)-608.67 acres, Viraj Steel & Energy Ltd (Sambalpur)-2.58 acres, VAL (Kalahandi)-826.56 acres, Dhamara Port Company Ltd (Bhadrak)-1070 acres and Posco India Ltd (Jagatsinghpur)-437.86 acres.
The CAG was also sore over the fact that land acquired in case of all these six industrial projects was not put to use for a period ranging from 15 months to six years three months from the date of publication of notification under Section 4 (1) against the stipulated time period of six months.