Gopal Krishna Agarwal, a chartered accountant and a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national executive, was the chief of its erstwhile economic policy cell. Now a member of the party's committee on the land Bill, he tells Archis Mohan how pushing amendments through an Ordinance made the people doubt the Narendra Modi government's intentions. Edited excerpts:
How do you view opposition to amendments to the Land Act of 2013, including
from the within the Sangh Parivar?
The
debate in the public domain is on perceptions. Facts are missing. The BJP has been accused of
doing things it has not. Much is being said in comparison to the Act. That
legislation is now being considered sacrosanct. But a deeper analysis will show
up the shortcomings in the Act.
What are these misconceptions?
The first is about the Narendra Modi government having
removed the consent clause. Even in the Act, consent was not required for
government acquisition for public purpose. Section 2 of the Act had defined 12
categories of public purpose in which consent was not required. Consent was
required for government acquiring land for the private sector and for the
government acquiring land for public-private partnership projects. The BJP has removed consent only for public-private
partnership projects, where the land remains with the government and only for
those projects that fulfill the public purpose. Schedule 4 of the Act has 13
clauses under which the government acquired almost 80-90 per cent of land that
were exempt from the consent clause.
There
is also confusion about whose consent. People think that the Act sought consent from the
landowner. Actually, the Act sought consent from project-affected families,
which was quite vague. Identifying project-affected families and whether at all
they have a stake on the land being acquired was complicating the process.
Another
issue is regarding the removal of the social impact assessment. It was removed
because of its drawn-out consultative process, which is prone to litigation.
Why delete consent for public-private partnership projects?
We have formed the government on the promise of economic development.
Development needs investment. There are only three avenues for this: foreign
investment, private investment, and government spending. Our government is
trying to create an enabling environment, but it is for the foreign investor to
decide whether to invest in India. Private investment will not come unless
there is strong demand, while the government's coffers are empty.
Public-private partnership is the route through which investments can come in
for infrastructure projects.
What about objections to the removal of the clause that required
the government to return land to owners if not used for five years?
There is some confusion here, too. Two sections deal with land going back to
the owner if not utilised. In Section 24 (2), the latest amendments have not
made major changes. They have only excluded the period of litigation from the
calculation of the period of five years in the clause. Section 101 addresses
the issue of projects with gestation periods of more than five years, like
defence or nuclear projects. For these, the time period will be decided at the
beginning of the project.
Your allies like the Shiromani Akali Dal have
advised you to look at the Punjab land law, which has social impact assessment
as a key feature...
Meetings with state governments in June 2014, and later among secretaries of
the ministries responsible for implementing the Act, identified social impact
assessment as the biggest hurdle in implementation of the 2013 law. There are
different formulations on social impact assessment and every state has its own
bill. The states are free to have their own version of the Act provided the
compensation, resettlement and rehabilitation are in accordance with this Act.
We have tried to address the concerns by providing for jobs in a project for
family members affected by land acquisition, not allowing acquisition of land
in excess of what is required - all this needs to be assessed by an independent
authority. This authority will hear the grievances of farmers at the district
level. These issues will be addressed at the time of framing rules.
There is ample unutilised land with special economic zones.
The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh has
pointed out that there are over 80,000 hectares of land with sick public sector
undertakings. Why acquire from farmers when these can be used?
The amendments have talked about setting up a bank of non-irrigated land and a
tribunal. Projects will be required to first utilise land from the bank. But
land is being acquired for infrastructure development and industrial corridors
along highways and railway lines. The government cannot, under this Act,
acquire large tracts of land to give to industrial houses. That concern is not
valid. The Act does not talk about industrial clusters, whereas special
economic zones are quite a different concept.
Where is the evidence that land acquisition under the 2013 Act
failed?
Yes, we do not have any data as such. The objections are from the study of the
Act and opinions of stakeholders. We have to understand that this Act's
objective is not only to settle all the issues of farmers. Everybody agrees
that our agriculture faces issues that are very complicated. These issues are
not going to be tackled through the Land Acquisition Act.
We
have to delink many of the farmer's problems from the objectives of the Act.
Here the objective is simply acquiring of land for infrastructure development
and for government projects. Other problems of farmers will be tackled through reforms
in the agricultural sector. Second, the land bill has various stakeholders.
Farmers and landowners are one. Each stakeholder can have his demand, but the
government has to take a consolidated view and take care of most of the
concerns of all the people.
But where was the need to bring in an Ordinance?
I think this is one of the issues where perception has overtaken reality. There
were 13 clauses in Schedule 4 outside the purview of the 2013 Act, which meant
that if any land was acquired under these clauses, compensation to the
landowner was to be paid under the 1894 law. Additionally, the 2013 Act had
mandated that within one year the government should bring these 13 clauses
under the purview of the Act. The last date for that inclusion was December 31,
2014. Therefore, either an Ordinance or a notification was required before
December 2014.
In
the meanwhile, the consultative process with the state governments came up with
a consensus that more amendments were required. Clubbing of the amendments in
the Ordinance was not a compulsion, but it was thought to be procedurally
easier. We could have delinked the two. I think we could have done that.
Clubbing the two led people to doubt our intentions.
