The Land Acquisition Amendment Bill, expected to be pushed for Cabinet approval shortly, is all set to be opposed by Trinamul Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee. Preparing to take charge of West Bengal, Ms Banerjee will be meeting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over the contentious legislation since the PMO is also inclined to push it for early approval.
Ms Banerjee, who built her movement against the Left Front by opposing land acquisition, suggested in a note to the Prime Minister that land cannot be handed over to industries “even if a single farmer (landholder) objects to the move”. Her note also opposed the government “acting as a facilitator for corporate houses in acquiring land for them”. The alarm bell might start ringing when she pushes for her suggestion, which states: “Farmers will also have to be given a share of the companies setting up industries on their lands.” For lands acquired for government projects, the Trinamul intends to buy it directly from landowners “at the going market rate and provide one job per family from whom the land is acquired”.
The Trinamul Congress is also planning to constitute a task force to frame a new agriculture land policy in the state after it forms government. The proposed task force will have representation from industry as well as from the bureaucracy.
Ms Banerjee, who is also Union railway minister, has gone quiet on the issue of setting up a rail coach factory. Singur, which has been Ms Banerjee’s springboard to return to the political centrestage, had recorded an 85 per cent turnout during the polls.
It may be recalled that the contentious legislation to change the Land Acquisition Act of 1894, which the Prime Minister intends to introduce during the Monsoon Session of Parliament, had been put on hold following stringent opposition from Ms Banerjee. She skipped all the Cabinet meets in which the bill was discussed. Though the 14th Lok Sabha, during its last lap in February 2009, had passed the bill, it lapsed following the dissolution of the House.
The new land policy to be introduced by Ms Banerjee is expected to announce that the government “will not take a single inch of land against the wishes of the landowners”. It will suggest that the “investors who want to set up their facilities in Bengal will have to buy the required land on their own directly from landowners at market prices and the government will not intervene in this process,” sources disclosed.
On being asked whether the government would not acquire private land for its own projects, Leader of the Opposition Partha Chatterjee said that for “projects of the state and the Central governments, if any land is required, we will purchase it from the private owners directly after paying them compensation at the prevailing market rate”.
The new policy to be adopted by the Trinamul Congress could put a question mark on capital flow into West Bengal. It was pointed out that land holdings in the state are small due to the successful land reforms carried out by the Left Front over 34 years. Even for 997.11 acres of land at Singur for Tata Motors’ Nano project, which later shifted to Sanand in Gujarat, the state government had to acquire land from around 10,000 private land owners.
“It will be a problem, particularly for big industrial units which need large quantum of land, if the state government does not intervene in the land-acquiring process. The government will have to facilitate,” said Mr Biswadeep Gupta, the joint managing director of JSW Bengal Steel, which is setting up the country’s largest steel plant at Salboni in West Midnapore.