Jairam Ramesh has moved quickly at his new perch, as the minister for rural development. His proposals with regard to a new law on land acquisition, aimed at giving the original owners of land a fair due, and paying additional compensation in cases of forcible acquisition through the provision of a solatium, are mostly along the right lines. In essence, he has moved away from the present situation in which the government can forcibly acquire land and hand it over to private interests — the issue that is at the heart of the protests in Noida, neighbouring Delhi. In doing so, the minister has defined more narrowly the principle of eminent domain — as this newspaper had recommended a while ago. Private industry keen on acquiring land will be required to buy it directly in the market, except in cases where there is a demonstrable public interest involved, in which case the government can step in. In short, the new draft Bill has moved in the right direction.
This may not please industry; the chambers of commerce had argued that acquiring land directly would be a difficult process, and that it would slow down industrialisation. This need not be the case. What it will do, however, is help the less densely populated states to steal a march over the more heavily populated states like West Bengal and Kerala (which have a density of 1,000 people per square km, compared to a national average of about 400 —and a global average of 40!). Companies will prefer to go to places where more land can be acquired while displacing fewer people, as in Gujarat. If the new compensation rules, along with the provision of the proposed annuity, had been applied to some of the industrial projects that have faced resistance on land acquisition, especially in Orissa, they might have had easier passage. Equally, if companies had been told all along to acquire land from the market, some of them may have settled for smaller patches for their factories, instead of seeking to become local jagirdars.
However, some amendments to what has been proposed are in order. First, the threshold of 80 per cent land by private purchase before the government steps in to buy the rest is too high; this newspaper had proposed a threshold of 70 per cent as more realistic. Second, the bar on using multi-crop irrigated land for setting up industries is well taken, but this might prove impracticable when cities (like Delhi) are located in fertile areas and need to grow. Finally, state governments will need to be vigilant to prevent musclemen acting on behalf of powerful buyers from coercing sale by unwilling farmers.