At the end of the day money talks. And big money talks big. As opposition increases, also from within the Sangh Parivar, to certain contentious clauses of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Bill, 2015, the BJP government not just at the Centre but also in states like Goa where the government has finished half its term, will feel the heat.
The two new clauses introduced by the Modi government to the new Land Acquisition Bill drafted by the Manmohan Singh government, will alter the very equation between the farmer/ landholder and the government. And the change in equation is this. The land holder will be out of the equation. It’s that simple and that’s what it means. Effectively speaking, it’s in black and white. There’s nothing virtual or half-baked about this.
The original Land Acquisition Act, 2013 had a consent clause for acquiring land for industrial corridors, Public Private Partnership projects, rural infrastructure, affordable housing and defence. But the BJP government took these five categories out from the clause which required consent from 70% of the land owners before these lands could be acquired.
In any case multi-crop irrigated land can also be acquired for purposes like national security, defence, rural infrastructure including electrification, industrial corridors and building social infrastructure. That’s a pretty wide sweep with “rural infrastructure” coming under a very subjective ambit.
The other contentious clause is that Social assessment which was mandatory before acquiring land has been exempted. This effectively means that not only will individual consent not be taken, the local society will not be able to discuss the social impact of a particular project.
Now the government wants to weigh all these massive anti-people clauses against the Rs 18 lakh crore projects that are awaiting clearance. Best of luck to them.
The government needs to, at the very least let the farmer know whether he matters because the Prime Minister he voted for told him that this game changing era will be about “sabka saath sabka vikas”. But here he can’t even get his land back if the land is unused by the project proponent for five years. He will get it back only if the project fails to complete its deadline which can always be flexible and amended. In any case do you expect a farmer to enter into a litigation with the government to get his land?
Importantly, this injustice will play out in Goa in all its unfairness. The Land Acquisition process for the Mopa airport is a colossal betrayal of the people. Not only was land acquired without any consultation and with manipulated consent, the compensation levels pre-date even the version of the Land Acquisition Bill moved by the Manmohan Singh government. All further acquisition will have the current handicaps. Goa Chief Minister Parsekar hasn’t yet realised the impact this could have. This will have a fallout across Goa and the Chief Minister will be hard put to explain this because the spin that the Prime Minister is giving of the bill opening up locked doors for industry will not work in many areas in Goa which do not connect with this spin.
The further this BJP government moves away from people, the more difficult it will be for them to be a party of any significance in the 2017 elections.
