This refers to the article “The key to not landing in trouble” (June 9). Providing land to industrial investors has been a big challenge for state governments and has often led to agitations like the ones we saw in Singur, Nandigram and, more recently, Bhatta-Parsaul. The draft Land Acquisition Bill states that approval for land acquisition should be granted only if 70 per cent of the people being displaced agree to it. But Tamil Nadu has managed to ensure smooth land acquisition for industrial development without any such Act. This was achieved because the state government took the initiative to negotiate and work out amicable deals with land owners.
After the Bhatta-Parsaul incident, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati seems to have become wiser and has come up with a policy in which the state government will act as a facilitator and would only notify and earmark the boundary of the land to be acquired. The price of the land and other modalities of the deal would be decided between farmers and private developers. This seems to be the best way to tackle the problem of land acquisition.
M C Joshi, Lucknow
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