Land Acquisition, The Corporate Sector And People
By Walter Fernandes
29 December, 2014
Assamtribune.com
According to a news item (The Assam Tribune, 7th December 2014) the Central Government has promised to make land acquisition for the private sector easier. It will amend The Right to Transparency, Just Compensation in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act 2013 (LAR&R) that the Parliament enacted in September 2013 to replace the 119 year old colonial Land Acquisition Act 1894 (LAA). Both the BJP and the Congress voted for it. But after coming to power the NDA wants to amend or delete many of its clauses that favour the land losers but the corporate sector opposes them. Already in July 2014 the Minister for Rural Development had said that the government would introduce changes in the LARR&R if the opposition cooperated with it. These changes will strengthen the corporate sector but the people will be forced to sacrifice their livelihood for the profit of these entrepreneurs.
LAR&R was a response to two decades of demands and struggles by people who were impoverished by land loss to development projects. Studies put the number of people displaced by land acquisition at 60 millions 1947-2004 Not even 20 percent of them have been rehabilitated. For the first time this Act combines displacement with rehabilitation and tries to attend to the interests both of the farmers and of the corporate sector. The land losers want more benefits when their land is acquired, and the corporate sector wants more land and faster than in the past. The Act ensures the farmers a somewhat high compensation. It stipulates that the consent of 80 percent of the affected families be got before acquiring land for a private company and 70 percent for a joint venture. It wants social impact assessment (SIA) in order to study the impact of land takeover on people. If compensation has not been decided or paid for land acquired five or more years prior to this law it will come under LAR&R which gives more benefits than the LAA did. Among land losers it includes all its dependants, the legal owner as well as agricultural labourers and people tilling community land because all of them sustain themselves on it. To get these benefits they should have depended on that asset for three years prior to the acquisition notification, to ensure that powerful persons do not spread rumours to frighten the landowners into selling that land to them at a low price. They then get all the benefits. It treats all adult women, not merely men, as separate families for the benefits of rehabilitation. Emergency acquisitions were allowed under the LAA but this clause was abused. So LAR&R restricts them to defence and to rehabilitate disaster affected persons.
LAR&R also has many negative points. Compensation and share in decision-making tilt towards the big farmers who are ready to sell their land for a good price. Their children study in English medium schools and would like to take up salaried jobs instead of returning to the village to till their land. They can invest their compensation amount in companies. But land is the livelihood of medium and small farmers, of the landless labourers and other dependants. They are not adequately present in LAR&R. The big landowners being village leaders can pressurise the rest to agree to give their land and thus get the required majority. It gives priority to private investors who want to acquire as much land as possible very fast. The definition of the “public purpose” for which land is acquired is so broad that any project that the private investor wants can be included in it. It focuses on economic benefits that the big land owners want, and ignores the cultural, psychological, and social impacts of land takeover. Enhanced compensation can reduce the pain but it cannot prevent impoverishment. Thus, it favours the corporate sector and tries to satisfy the land losers by giving them some financial benefits.
The negative clauses will remain but the Government wants to change the pro-people clauses. The statement of the Minister for Rural Development to the opposition “We can review the Land Acquisition Act... if there is cooperation from your side” referred to 19 changes that the Government wants to introduce in the Act. They will dilute the few safeguards provided for the affected people. They were upheld by social movements but were opposed by the corporate sector. Firstly, the Government wants to delete the clause on consent or bring it down to 50 percent. Its justification is that the ownership of land is vested in the State. This premise is disputable and it does not justify diluting a democratic step while seeking to replace the lifestyle of the land losers.
A major departure of LAR&R is the inclusion of all the dependants in the definition of affected families. It meant that all those who sustain themselves on it have to be rehabilitated by the agency that gets that land. The reason given for this change is possible misuse, in the absence of clear criteria. Every law can be misused. For example the law demands environment impact assessment of new projects. Many investors employ professional consultants who prepare the type of report that they want. But the private sector does not want this particular clause because it involves time and expenses to calculate the numbers. Equally destructive is the proposal to do away with the SIA that is an important tool to determine whose consent needs to be sought. The private sector does not want it for fear of delay in land acquisition. The answer to abuses lies in taking precautions against them and not in doing away with a measure meant to protect the people while uprooting their entire social existence.
The Government wants to do away with the retroactive clause of applying LAR&R for land acquired under the LAA during five years or more before 2013 of which compensation has not been determined or paid. It fears that it can reopen conflicts that have been settled or cause additional burden on the State exchequer. The argument is untenable because the burden rests largely on the agency acquiring that land. In most cases it is the private sector. It also wants to lower compensation, and proposes to extend the powers to acquire land under the urgency clause to State governments. Now it rests with the Union Government. It also wants to expand its definition to include defence and “any other purpose.” That can enable the State Governments to take over land for any purpose within 30 days. That is a recipe for conflicts.
These are precisely the clauses that the corporate sector opposed when LAR&R was enacted. The discussion during the next few months will determine whether the NDA government wants to close the few openings that the people had in the new law and hand the country completely over to the corporate sector by trampling on the rights of the common citizens.
Walter Fernandes is a researcher, and was founder-director of the North Eastern Social Research Centre, Guwahati, from 2000 to early 2012.
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