India urgently needs a new land acquisition policy as the present framework is outdated and does not adequately incorporate the interests of the owners and workers of the land procured by private firms, according to Planning Commission member Arun Maira.
“We need to recognise key principles, such as the interests of the owners and the stakeholders, before devising a solution. We will have to find a more appropriate solution as the present model is unstable. We must get it as soon as possible,” Maira said here today on the sidelines of a seminar organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry and the Suresh Neotia Centre of Excellence. He said that private firms should acquire land themselves at the market cost, instead of obtaining it from the government at subsidised rates.
However, he added that the state governments would have to act as a facilitator in instances where acquisition by private companies was being held up by a small number of unwilling landowners. “We have seen that in certain cases, some people will hold on to their land, without which a project cannot be undertaken, because they want more money for it. In such cases, it is suggested that the government intervenes and facilitates the acquisition at market prices,” Maira said.
He said West Bengal, for instance, had seen good models for land acquisition such as JSW Bengal’s project at Salboni as well as bad ones like Tata Motors’ abandoned Nano project at Singur. “The landlosers should be made a stakeholder to the project,” Maira said.
