LAND ACQUISITION: FAIR LAW NEEDED

The Allahabad High Court order quashing the UP government notification on acquiring agricultural land for the Anil Ambani group's 1,400MW power plant at Dadri is a landmark one as it establishes the right of the farmer to sell or not sell his land. The state's earlier Mulayam Singh Yadav government had used emergency powers to sidestep the provision requiring that objections be invited from owners of the land. Around 2,500 farmers had already given up their land, and now the court has ruled that if any of them so wish they can return the money and take their back after the government hears their objections. The land problem is hardly peculiar to this project: at several places across the country — ranging from Singur in West Bengal (where the Tatas' Nano project was thrown out) to Kerala and more recently the Konkan coast — people are in revolt over their land being taken for development. Agitations are going on now against a nuclear plant proposed at Jaigad in Sindhudurg (Maharashtra) and thermal power projects coming up on the Konkan coast with a combined capacity of 18,100MW. The Konkan Bachao Samiti claims the lush area will be polluted by coal, uranium and hazardous waste and endanger marine life. Earlier, the country's largest SEZ which was to be set up by the Mukesh Ambani group at Raigad near Alibag got stalled due to objections from 22 villages that were likely to be affected. The Centre as well as state governments will sooner or later have to come up with a land acquisition law that really takes care of the interests of farmers and also the needs of industrial development, which is so vital to the country's growth. Simply acting in the name of "public good" no longer holds water as farmers and others whose land is to be acquired have realised they are being cheated. Not only will terms like "public good" need to be precisely defined; farmers too will have to be treated equitably in case there is no alternative to acquisition of their land. Way back in 1948, India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had told villagers about to be displaced by the Hirakud Dam that if they had to suffer it was because the country's overall interest demanded it. This mindset no longer finds any resonance across India: no government can tell people that they should put up with hardship or impoverishment in the name of development. Neither the State nor corporate bodies can shy away from the responsibility of rehabilitating people who are displaced by their projects. It has been estimated that over 21 million people have been displaced for various development projects across the country. Several suggestions have been put forward on how they should be given relief: the World Bank and the World Commission on Dams has suggested the "land for land" formula — so that a farmer gets land equal to what has been taken from him, plus adequate compensation. A trustee of the Research Foundation for Governance in India suggests that an independent judicial body be set up to hear objections from people who are to be displaced and to rule on the quantum of compensation if there is any dispute. The existing procedures are completely arbitrary and weighted in favour of the government, which is no surprise as many of the laws date back to the colonial era.