Odisha mulls direct land-buy model to cut acquisition time, boost industry

To overcome the hassles of acquisition, Idco has identified 100,000 acres under the Land Bank scheme

With land procurement the key bottleneck to establishing industrial projects, mainly the big ticket ones, the Odisha government is thinking of developing a new model for land purchase. Under this model, both the investors and the state-owned land acquisition agency, the Odisha Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Idco), can go for direct buying of land from the owners without invoking Land Acquisition Rules.

"The days of arbitrary and forced land acquisition are gone. The mechanism that we are now exploring is the direct purchase of land as opposed to acquiring it under Land Acquisition Rules. This involves talking to people and offering