National Conference on the Five-Year Journey of
THE RFCTLARR ACT, 2013
THE WAY FORWARD
October 25-26, 2018 | India Habitat Centre
THE ENERGY AND
RESOURCES INSTITUTE
Creating Innovative Solutions for a Sustainable Future
RFCTLARR Conference 2018
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CONTENTS
MESSAGES
DIRECTOR GENERAL, TERI
02
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, NSDC
03
MANAGING DIRECTOR, AAI
04
MANAGING DIRECTOR, NHIDCL
05
ACTING DIRECTOR, CWDS
06
AGENDA OF NATIONAL CONFERENCE
07
CONCEPT NOTE
10
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
13
BACKGROUND PAPERS
15
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE
25
WAY FORWARD
131
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Dear Friends,
The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation
and Resettlement Act, 2013 constitutes a significant step in the country’s march towards
a land acquisition regime that is grounded in transparency of processes and fairness of
outcomes. While the implementation of the Act, over the course of the last five years,
has decidedly resulted in a humane and participative land acquisition system, it has
also seen the emergence of differing viewpoints over some substantive and procedural
provisions of the Act, culminating in the Amendment of the Central Law by some states.
TERI organized a two-day national conference on 25th and 26th October 2018 to bring
together various stakeholders for a discussion on the five-year journey of the Act
and the future prospects. Specifically, the participants deliberated on the emergent
challenges and suitable pathways for sustainable land procurement framework for
industrialization, urbanization and infrastructure development.
I am happy to share the report of the proceedings of the conference. I sincerely hope
that it will contribute to policy, practice and research in the area that is critical to India’s
economic development.
Best wishes,
Dr Ajay Mathur
Director General, TERI
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Message
NSDC was set up as public private partnership entity in 2008 by the Ministry of Finance, Government of India
and now works under the ambit of Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. Its mandate is to
facilitate skill training in partnership with industry and private training providers. NSDC provides funding
for building scalable, for-profit, vocational initiatives across the country. NSDC has established a robust
network of more than 400 Training Partners with approximately 7000 training centers across India. It is also
implementing Governments’ flagship schemes such as Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana and Pradhan
Mantri Kaushal Kendra among others.
The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement
(RFCTLARR) Act, 2013 has brought about a paradigm shift in land acquisition process in India. Acquisition
of land in a developing economy like India is essential for infrastructure development, urbanization and
industrialization which have a multiplier effect on economic development. Development projects though
important in the long run, create significant changes in the daily lives of local population. Land acquisition
for such projects displaces many and causes loss of livelihoods in the short run, which results in resistance.
Therefore, skill development becomes very crucial for the displaced and affected persons as it is a
tool to integrate them back into the labor workforce and contribute to the country’s GDP.
NSDC is undertaking both fresh skilling and is recognizing prior talent of the displaced and affected
population. For example; through various industry partnerships and CSR programs, NSDC in collaboration
with corporates is targeting affected communities and creating sustainable livelihood through various
project in the affected areas. The aim of such projects is to provide skill training along with placements in
the local industries and is also preparing them for entrepreneurship/ self-employment.
Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) is in an important program that aids displaced persons with a skill
certification resulting in higher bargaining power and more respect at the work place.Women empowerment
is also an important part of the RPL conducted by NSDC through its network of training providers.
Re-skilling and creating new opportunities for re-development of their livelihood through short term
skilling, long term skilling and apprenticeship programs is an endeavor towards successful rehabilitation
and resettlement of the affected communities.
Mr Manish Kumar
MD & CEO, National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC)
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MESSAGE
NHIDCL is honoured by the opportunity given to us to be the part of the National Conference
on the ‘Five Year Journey of the RECTLARR Act, 2013 conducted on 25th and 26th October
2018 at New Delhi. The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition,
Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (RECTLARR Act, 2013) is aimed at providing
fair compensation to those, whose lands are acquired for construction of highways and
bridges for the development of the country. The Act brings transparency in the process
of Land Acquisition, involves communities in decision making whether their land should
contribute to causes of national development and assures infrastructure and rehabilitation
and resettlement of the land owners.
NHIDCL, a Public Sector Undertaking under the aegis of Ministry of Road Transport
& Highways was commenced in September 2015 to construct roads in States with
international borders. At present, NHIDCL has been entrusted with the task of development
and improving road connectivity of over of 13,000 kms, mainly in North Eastern Region
including international trade roads.
NHIDCL’s primarily area of work is National Highways, for which land is acquired under
NH Act, 1956, for which the benefits are at par with that provided to acquisitions under
RFCTLAR Act, 2013. In some of the states where the land acquisitions had to be done
through the 2013 Act, the Social Impact Assessment has been the most time taking activity.
Lacks of a system of land records and formal system of transfer have nullified the benefits of
the process, and the acquisitions have become a play thing of intermediaries. We have also
seen abuse of the generous compensation and resettlement & rehabilitation benefits. It
has also forced us to be extremely careful about the extent of fund needed for the projects.
There is a need to further fine tune the process under RFCTLAR Act, 2013 so that land
acquisitions are not only fair, transparent and prompt, but also keep real beneficiaries as
the primary recipient of benefits there under.
We hope that the exchange of thoughts in the seminar and the publication of the
proceedings thereof would spur more nuanced discussion and action which is beneficial
both to the landholder and furthers national development.
-MD, NHIDCL
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Addressing Gender in the RFCTLARR Act, 2013
Centre for Women’s Development Studies, New Delhi
The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation, and
Resettlement Act (RFCTLARR), 2013 with its provisions of consent, public consultation,
social impact assessment (SIA) and wider inclusion of ‘project affected families’ is
definitely progressive. While the Act has standardized compensation and rehabilitation
and resettlement awards to land owners displaced by development projects and also has
provisions for others whose livelihoods are dependent on land, it has done little to address
gender concerns. This is primarily as monetary compensation for the land acquired by the
project would only go to those who legally have ownership rights, or whose name is in the
record of rights (RoR), but women’s names are seldom found there, due to exclusions with
respect to inheritance despite enactment of progressive inheritance laws (Hindu Succession
Amendment Act or HSA 2005).
Given this reality of lack of legal land rights and women’s situation within households, in the
case of land acquisition they may be adversely affected as they are pushed off family lands.
As the compensation sums offered are based on market formula that emphasizes on cash/
monetary settlement and do not guarantee property in equivalence, there may be many
instances where project displaced family who received monetary compensation never buy
back equivalent land or property. In these cases, women in the family may be more adversely
affected as land and property guarantee economic support for women, particularly in cases
of desertion and widowhood.
To ensure women’s interests are protected in land acquisition the RFCTLARR 2013 could be
amended, to include correction of land records in conformity with the HSA 2005. As part
of the SIA, gender disaggregated data should be collected and socioeconomic situation of
every women in all project affected families should be assessed. Rather than considering all
families equally, there should be special consideration to women headed households, as well
as widows and unmarried women within households. The SIA team should conduct separate
consultation with all women in the designated project area and make special enquiry into
land and property ownership by women and make recommendations to ensure all adult
single and married women’s names are included in the RoR. Further in the case of single
women (widows, deserted, unmarried) it should be mandatory to restore compensation in
form of immovable assets such as land and property which should be in women’s names,
while in case of married women the monetary compensation and any house given as part of
resettlement award should be in joint names of both husband and wife.
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FIVE-YEAR JOURNEY OF
THE RFCTLARR ACT, 2013:
THE WAY FORWARD
(25 and 26 October, 2018)
Agenda Day 1—25 October, Jacaranda, IHC
Time
Agenda
9.00 – 9.45 am
Registration
9.45 -11.00 am
Inaugural Session
9.45 – 10.00 am
Welcome Address by Dr Ajay Mathur, Director General TERI,
10.00 – 10.35 am
Opening Remarks by Dr Rajat Kathuria, Director and Chief Executive, ICRIER
10.35 – 10.45 am
Inaugural Address by Dr Naresh C Saxena, Former Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development
Release of Special Volume of the Journal of Resources, Energy and Development
10.45 – 11.00 am
Vote of Thanks by Dr Preeti Jain Das, Senior Fellow, TERI
11.00 – 11.20 am
Tea break
11.20 – 1.15 pm
1st session
The RFCTLARR Act, 2013: State of the Law
11:20 am– 11:50 pm
Keynote address by Dr Nirmala Buch, Former Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development
11.50 - 1.00 pm
Panel discussion
Panelists:
Shri Anil Gupta, Executive Director (Land Management) Airports Authority of India
Dr Mahesh Kumar, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry
Shri Ravindra Shrivastava, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court
Moderator: Shri H S Meena, Joint Secretary, Department of Land Resources
1.00 – 1.15 pm
Question & Answer Session
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1.15 – 2.15 pm
Lunch
2:15 – 5:15 pm
2ndSession
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Land Procurement Models: What Have We Learnt
2.15 – 2.45 pm
Keynote address by Justice Shri G B Patnaik, Former Chief Justice of Supreme Court
2:45 – 4.00 pm
Panel discussion
Panelists:
Shri Vinay Kumar Singh (Executive Director), National Highways and Infrastructure
Development Corporation Ltd.
Dr D V Giri, Secretary General, Indian Wind Turbine Manufacturers’ Association
Dr Meena Vidhani, Dy. Director (Planning) Delhi Development Authority
Moderator: Shri Subhash Chandra, IFS, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change
4.00 – 4:15 pm
Tea Break
4:15 – 5.15 pm
Question & Answer Session
6.45 – 8.30 pm
Dinner at Badminton Court, 5th floor, TERI
Agenda Day 2—26 October, Tamarind, IHC
Time
Agenda
9:30 am – 1:00 pm
1st Session
Social Impact Assessment: From Policy to Practice
9.30 – 10.00 am
Keynote address by Shri Jairam Ramesh, Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha
10:00 – 11:00 am
Panel discussion
Panelists:
Dr Debrabata Samanta, Head SIA Unit, Chandragupt Institute of Management Patna
Dr D Suresh, Divisional Commissioner, Gurgaon
Shri V S Bisht, Executive Vice President, PTC India Financial Services Ltd.
Moderator: Shri Arun Kumar, Former Secretary, Ministry of Mines
11.00 – 11.15 am
Tea break
11.15 – 1.00 pm
Question & Answer Session
1.00 – 2.00 pm
Lunch
2:00 – 4.55 pm
2nd Session
Rehabilitation of PAFs: Experience of Livelihood Restoration
2.00 – 2:30 pm
Keynote address by Dr K P Krishnan, Secretary, Ministry of Skill Development and
Entrepreneurship
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2:30 – 3:30 pm
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Panel discussion
Panelists:
Shri Mahendra Payaal, Head (RPL, Special Projects), National Skill Development
Corporation
Shri Pranay Kumar, Managing Director, Consultants for Rural Area Linked Economy
(CRADLE)
Dr Parthapriya Ghosh, Senior Development Specialist, World Bank
Shri Aniruddha Kumar, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Power
Moderator: Dr Prodipto Ghosh, Distinguished Fellow, TERI
3:30 – 3:45 pm
Tea Break
3.45 – 4.15 pm
Question & Answer Session
4.15 – 4:45 pm
Experience sharing by participants
4.45 – 4.55 pm
Concluding Remarks by Dr Preeti Jain Das, Senior Fellow, TERI
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SIA KNOWLEDGE HUB
National Conference on the Five-Year Journey of
India Habitat Centre
Concept Note on National Conference
Five Year Journey of The RFCTLARR
Act, 2013: The Way Forward
The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in
Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act
(RFCTLARR Act), 2013 has created a distinctive rubric
aimed at establishing a fair, participatory and transparent
land acquisition regime in India. The redefining of
land market for industrial and infrastructural activities,
pursuant to the Act, has generated differing viewpoints
and responses among various stakeholders - landowners,
state government, central agencies, industry and judiciary.
Even as existing institutional arrangements align with the
new legislation, organizational structures are emerging in
accordance with the processes and procedures stipulated
in the RFCTLARR Act, 2013, The RFCTLARR (SIA and
Consent), Rules 2014 and The RFCTLARR (Compensation,
Rehabilitation and Resettlement and Development Plan),
Rules 2015. The enactment of Rules by several state
governments under Section 112 read with Section 109 of
The RFCTLARR Act, 2013 has smoothened the execution
process but capacity-deficit of stakeholders remain an area
of concern. The judicial scrutiny of the legislative action of
state governments and interpretations of certain critical
designing of rehabilitation and resettlement award can be
a useful guide to policy formulators and practitioners.
Five years since its enactment, it has become important, in
the interest of policy and practice, to examine the extent
to which the stated objectives of the Act have been met,
identify challenges to its implementation, comprehend
the emergent land acquisition scenario and explore
the approaches and strategies for a sustainable land
procurement framework.
TERI proposes to organize a two-day National Conference
in October, 2018 at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi
for bringing together key stakeholders – Ministries,
PSUs, Corporates, state revenue departments, SIA Units,
SIA agencies, practitioners, academicians, NGOs, civil
society members - to confer on various aspects of the
implementation of The RFCTLARR Act, 2013 and deliberate
on the future course of action.
Specifically, the objectives of the national conference are:
1. Critique the implementation of The RFCTLARR Act,
2013 in furthering the objectives laid down in the
Preamble to the Act.
2. Discuss efficient land provisioning options for industrial
and infrastructure projects.
the course of acquisition of land for public purposes. A
3. Reflect upon the prevalent SIA and R&R practices to
enhance capacities through experience-sharing.
compilation of best practices through experience-sharing
4. Collate ideas and suggestions to facilitate the framing
of social impact assessment studies, public hearing and
of Rules by Central and state governments in respect of
consent seeking, computation of cash compensation and
the provisions of The RFCTLARR Act, 2013.
provisions of the law are likely to significantly impact
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5. Foster academic interest in the area of SIA and R&R to
advance policy and research.
The objectives will be achieved through four interactive
sessions, spanning over two days. The session will focus on:
•
Implications of judicial interpretations of provisions
of The RFCTLARR Act, 2013 and enactments by state
governments.
•
The efficacy of different land procurement models,
post 2013.
•
Ground realities in assessing social impacts.
•
Issues in rehabilitation through livelihood restoration.
The national conference will be an occasion for the release
of the Special Issue of TERI’s Journal of Resources, Energy
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and Development on The RFCTLARR Act, 2013. Policy
makers, practitioners, researchers and academicians have
contributed Papers to the Special issue.
Expected outcomes
1. Submission of policy suggestions on each session topic
to DoLR and state governments.
2. Report of conference proceedings in a TERI Journal and
on TERI website for wider dissemination.
3. Conceptualization of a national platform- Land
Acquisition Knowledge Management Hub.
4. Set the stage for annual deliberations and consultations
among stakeholders.
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF
NATIONAL CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS
The two-day national conference on the ‘Five Year Journey
of The RFCTLARR Act, 2013: The Way Forward’ organized
by TERI at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, on 25 and 26
October 2018 provided an opportunity to policy makers,
Government agencies, industry, jurists, practitioners,
academicians, researchers and civil society to deliberate
on the experience of implementation of the new law and
offer solutions to address the emergent challenges.
The talks and discussions, spanning over two days,
focussed on a gamut of land issues – prevalent
land use pattern in the country, centrality of land
in urbanization, industrialization and infrastructure
development, implications of the paradigmatic shift in
the land acquisition regime, legislative action of states
in pursuance of Article 254(2) of the Constitution, land
revenue administration and capacities of agencies tasked
with implementation of the Act.
The general consensus was that the new legislation has
addressed the long-standing asymmetries of power
between acquiring bodies and affected people by
injecting transparency and fairness in land acquisition.
The proponents of the Act pointed to its likely role in
preventing land conflicts that, in the past, have bedevilled
the Land Acquisition Act, 1894. Further, the justiciability
of the state Amendment Acts that narrowed the scope
of SIA and consent provision enshrined in The RFCTLARR
Act, 2013 was commented upon. However, there were
few dissenting notes, as well. It was opined that the cost
of acquisition has become prohibitive and the process
has become cumbersome, which is adversely affecting
the pace of economic development. A few speakers
also alluded to the inordinate land price escalation and
increase in the number of land transactions immediately
after the issue of notification u/s 4 of the Act for the
conduct of social impact assessment study. Further,
attention was drawn to the duplication of activities
mandated in the environment impact assessment and
social impact assessment and it was suggested that a few
steps, common to both, can be merged to shorten the
time taken to acquire land.
Many speakers and participants dwelt on the need for
land use policies at the national and state level that
can provide roadmaps for sustainable application of
land in consonance with the needs of industry, interests
of communities, requirement of food security and
Sustainable Development Goals. Repeated emphasis was
placed on the need for updation and computerization
of land records, it was felt that outdated and poorly
managed land records create disputes and complicate
the acquisition process. It was suggested that ‘conclusive
titling’ in place of the existing regime of ‘presumptive
titling’ would significantly reduce land-related litigation.
The streamlining and strengthening of the revenue
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administration was also recommended. It was stated by
some speakers that the Act seeks to make the acquisition
process deliberately difficult in order to encourage
alternate options for land procurement – direct purchase,
pooling and leasing. While these options are attracting
attention, it was felt that, suitable policy and regulatory
frameworks have to be created by enacting new laws and
repealing or amending existing laws in states that work at
cross-purposes. During the 2nd session the salient features
of the Delhi Land Pooling Policy, 2018 were brought forth,
issues related to leasing of land in the renewable energy
sector were discussed and the procedure for diversion of
forest land for non-forest purposes was explained.
Considerable attention was devoted to the provision
of social impact assessment, which was characterized
as the keystone of the Central Law. SIA was lauded as
a valuable mechanism that guaranteed participation
in and transparency of the land acquisition process,
thereby, obviating the possibility of conflict at a later
stage. However, the dilution of the SIA provision by the
Amendment Acts of some states was regarded as a
retrograde step. At the same time, the urgent need to
build capacities of SIA Units, SIA agencies, district officials
and acquiring bodies was underlined.
During the 4th session, the speakers conceded, and
the participants concurred, that rehabilitation and
resettlement of Project-Affected-Families has received
insufficient attention over the years. According to Shri
Hukum Singh Meena, Joint Secretary, Department of Land
Resources, MoRD, approximately 85% of the involuntarilydisplaced families under The Land Acquisition Act, 1894
were not properly rehabilitated or resettled. It was felt
that, during the land acquisition process, attention is
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largely focussed on obtaining land and handing it over
to the project proponent, leaving the affected persons to
their own fate. Dr. Parthapriya Ghosh, the Development
Specialist from the World Bank informed the gathering
that meaningful outcomes depended on making R&R
activities a distinct part of the project plan with sufficient
allocation of time and resources. Concern was also
expressed about the largely non-productive pattern of
cash compensation utilization. It was hoped that the
exhaustive R&R provisions under The RFCTLARR Act,
2013 would have a beneficial impact. The need for skill
development for livelihood regeneration of PAFs was
emphasised. The conference also identified certain issues
that need to be addressed for safeguarding the interests
of various stakeholders. It was stressed that efforts were
required to facilitate the exercise of women’s right in land.
The frequent absence of formal title in the name of tribals
with repect to land over which they may have enjoyed
customary rights was considered to be a major source of
conflict that required a solution. It was felt that the demand
for ‘Right of Way’ over land in linear projects cannot be
dealt within the ambit of The RFCTLARR Act, 2013, an
amendment to the existing legislation was required. It
was strongly proposed that the unutilized land that was
acquired in the years prior to the new enactment should
either be returned to communities or be considered for
use by industry, before opting for new acquisition.
The Q&A sessions witnessed animated discussions which
was indicative of the inherently contentious nature of
the topic of land expropriation. The experience-sharing
by participants enriched the proceedings by providing
useful insights.
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SIA KNOWLEDGE HUB
The Energy and Resources Institute
National Conference on the Five-Year Journey of
India Habitat Centre
Background Note on 1st session: ‘The
RFCTLARR Act, 2013: state of the law’
It has been five years since Right to Fair Compensation
and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation
and Resettlement Act, 2013 was enacted (hereinafter
referred to as LARR Act). The objectives of the Act are
indicated in the long title of Act itself. One of the defining
features of the LARR Act is the emphasis on transparency,
rehabilitation, and resettlement along with compensation.
It enjoins upon the State to be fair, just, and transparent in
the process of land acquisition and ensure rehabilitation
and resettlement of the land owners, in addition to
compensation.
Importantly, the Preamble to the Act envisages a humane,
participative, and informed process to acquire land and
to ensure persons affected due to the developmental
compulsions are equal partners in the fruits of the
development.1
In the following note the statutory provisions which
enable these objectives shall be detailed. Along with them
the legislative and executive interventions since 2013
and judicial pronouncements shall also be presented to
provide a holistic view of the developments that have
taken place in respect to the Act.
1
See Preamble to The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency
in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation, and Resettlement Act No. 30 of
2013 available at http://www.legislative.gov.in/sites/default/files/
A2013-30.pdf last accessed on October 09, 2018.
Participative Process
One of the foremost objective of the LARR Act is to make
land acquisition process a participative exercise. The Act
defines the ‘Public Purpose’ for which land can be acquired.
The Act mandates that consent must be obtained from the
land owners while acquiring land.2 The acquisition of land
for private companies for projects of public purpose is
incumbent on the consent of 80% of land owners, consent
of 70 percent of land owners is required in case of publicprivate partnership projects.3 However, the requirement
of consent operates only if the land being acquired is for
private companies or public-private partnership projects.
At the same time the definition of public purpose, defined
in Section 2(1,) can be extended to private companies
and public-private partnership projects, thus, making
the scope of acquisition wider. It helps State to leverage
upon strategic partnerships with private bodies for
development of infrastructural and industrial capabilities
without significant intervention of State.
In order to ensure that the process is participative and
transparent, the Act mandates Social Impact Assessment
and a public hearing at the conclusion of the study.4
The purpose of Social Impact Assessment is aligned to
the sustainable and participative development goals.
The SIA reports must give a finding whether the project
serves public purpose, the land required is the bare
2
3
4
Ibid. Section 2 (2).
See Supra note 2, Section 2(2) and Section 3(i), 3(v)
See Supra note 2, Chapter II
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minimum, alternate sites have been considered and it
is the least displacing option. The SIA report will include
details of Project –Affected –Families, the entitlements for
compensation and R&R award. It must also include the
Social Impact Management Plan (SIMP).The SIA report
must be shared with the Affected Families in a public
hearing during which their concerns and issues have to
be addressed. The outcome of the public hearing must be
incorporated in the final SIA report. The proceedings of
public hearing must be video recorded and transcribed.
The SIA report has to be appraised by an Expert Group
which shall give a finding on whether the project serves
public purpose and the potential benefits outweigh the
social costs and adverse social impacts.
The necessity of the impact assessment report, prior to
land acquisition, is an important marker of the objective
of the LARR Act.5 It compels the State to take an informed
approach towards land acquisition and, at the same time,
ensure the participation of affected communities in the
acquisition process from the very beginning. It also helps all
the stakeholders to understand each other’s concerns and
collectively move towards a solution oriented approach.
This feature of the LARR Act is in sharp contrast to the
previous Land Acquisition Act, 1894. The 1894 Act did not
provide for any kind of assessment reports or public hearing
before the acquisition process began. Although objections
were invited, but only after notification to acquire land
was issued.6 However, the LARR Act mandates that the
notification to acquire land must include a statement
of the public purpose involved, reasons necessitating
the displacement of affected persons, summary of
the Social Impact Assessment report and particulars
of the Administrator appointed for rehabilitation and
resettlement purposes.7 A complete shift in the approach of
the State can be seen here: land acquisition under previous
law was fait accompli as far as the owners of the land were
concerned, whereas, under the new law all the stakeholders
have a chance to take part in the acquisition process.
Compensation
The other significant aspect is the compensation for the
5
6
7
There are certain exemptions that can be made by the Appropriate
Governments under Section 9, however, those are to be exercised
only in cases of urgency as specified in Section 40.
See Section 4 and 5A of the Land Acquisition Act, 1984 available
at http://www.prsindia.org/uploads/media/Land%20Acquisition/
bill167_20080311167_The_Land_Acquisition_Act__1894.pdf last
accessed on October10, 2018.
See Supra note 2, Section 11.
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land acquired. The LARR Act is very categorical about
the compensation that is to be awarded for loss of land,
livelihoods, and any other losses that may arise due to the
land acquisition and processes incidental thereto. Apart
from compensation, the Act also provides for solatium
and interest on the compensation amount. Solatium is
an additional amount added to the compensation award
and has been fixed at 100% of compensation. Similarly, an
interest on the award of the compensation at the rate of 12
% per annum shall be paid for the period between the date
of notification and date of actual payment of final award.
The compensation for land has been fixed at four times the
market value in rural lands and two times in urban areas.
This ensures that substantial life sustenance resources are
made available to the affected families who are displaced
and help them in resurrecting their lives and livelihoods.
Rehabilitation and Resettlement
One of the marked improvements of the LARR Act over
the previous Land Acquisition Act, 1894 is the shift in focus
from compensation to rehabilitation and resettlement. The
earlier law was solely focused on providing compensation
and, in some cases, a solatium. However, in the LARR Act,
the focus has shifted to rehabilitation and resettlement of
the displaced persons. The SIA reports, as discussed above,
must include the impact of the acquisition on the lives and
livelihoods of the affected families, their community and
social life, infrastructure and public utilities. This makes
estimation of rehabilitation and resettlement easier. Once
the impacts of the acquisition on the affected families
and communities are evident, the rehabilitation and
resettlement plans can be made accordingly.
Secondly, Chapter V of the LARR Act mandates that
the possession of the land can be taken only after
the payment of full compensation and notification of
rehabilitation and resettlement award. The Collector has
been made responsible to ensure that the rehabilitation
and resettlement scheme for each family is completed in
all respects before the families are displaced.
Thirdly, the process of preparation of rehabilitation
and resettlement scheme also includes notices for
public hearings and public representations. Here again
the approach of the law is to ensure that the relevant
stakeholders are not left out of the process and have
their say in the process. This provision empowers the
Project-affected-Families to raise objections, submit
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claims for rehabilitation and resettlement and ensure that
adverse social impacts are managed and the needs of the
community are addressed.
Special provision for Schedule Tribes and
Scheduled Castes
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Amendments by state governments
So far seven states have enacted amendments to The
RFCTLARR Act, 2013. These are Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand,
Gujarat, Telangana, Haryana and Maharashtra. The
Amendment Act of Andhra Pradesh has received the
Presidential assent and is awaiting notification. The state
The Act states that, as far as possible, land shall not be
amendments have incorporated the changes introduced
acquired in Scheduled Areas under the Fifth Schedule of
by the Central Ordinances which had lapsed in 2015. The
the Constitution. If acquired, it should be a demonstrable
major changes are: exemption of social impact assessment
last resort. The prior consent of the concerned Gram Sabha,
study for certain category of projects: exemption from
consent requirement for projects in public-private
Panchayat or the autonomous District Councils must be
obtained even if the land is sought to be acquired under
the urgency clause. In case of involuntary displacement of
SC and ST families, a Development Plan shall be prepared
incorporating measures safeguarding their special needs
and interests.
Developments, post 2013
partnership mode and by the private companies; payment
of lump sum amount instead of rehabilitation and
resettlement award for certain specified projects; direct
purchase of land from land owners; speedy payment of
compensation amount by exemption requirements of
enquiry for certain projects.
The RFCTLARR Act, 2014 came into effect on 1.1.2014. The
UPA Government that came to power in May 2014, soon
felt the need to amend certain provisions of the Act, which,
in its opinion, were cumbersome and stood in the way of
speedy acquisition of land for industrial and infrastructure
An Ordinance was promulgated in May 2014 which,
although, did not tweak the provisions of compensation,
rehabilitation and resettlement, did away with the
requirement for consent and social impact assessment for
industrial corridors, defence projects, rural infrastructure,
etc., and diluted the provision regarding the return of
acquired land to the landowners, if the land remained
unutilized beyond the stipulated period.
It has been contended by these States that the
The 2014 Ordinance created a furore in the political
arena and among the civil society members, forcing
its withdrawal in 2015, after two re-promulgations. The
Amendment Bill introduced in Parliament in Feb.2015, to
replace the Ordinance, was passed in the Lok Sabha in
May, but due to the stiff opposition in the Rajya Sabha, was
eventually referred to a Joint Parliamentary Committee.
The report of the Committee is still pending. In August
2015, the provisions of The RFCTLARR Act, 2013 relating
to the determination of compensation under the First
Schedule, Rehabilitation and Resettlement under the
Second Schedule and infrastructure amenities under
the Third Schedule were extended to all cases of land
acquisition under the 13 laws listed in Schedule IV of
Act. For example, the multiplier factor of compensation for
the Act.
amendments were necessitated by the delays in the land
acquisition process thereby making the investment by the
private sector in the developmental projects of the State
non-lucrative. Further, delays in land acquisition are also
stated to be hampering the growth of public infrastructure
like highways, road networks, airports, new cities, smart
cities, ports, affordable housing etc.
Apart from formulating the Amendment Acts, states are
using the delegated legislative powers under the LARR
Act, 2013 while framing Rules for land acquisition and the
processes involved therein. Some states have framed Rules
which are markedly different from the provisions of the LARR
rural land in Haryana, Chhattisgarh, and Tripura has been
kept at 1.00, thus reducing the compensation amount for
the land owners. Further, instead of returning the unused
or unutilized acquired lands to their owners, some states
are transferring them to land banks. Moreover, the land
return policy, in some cases, is not in consonance with the
intent of the Act. Karnataka, for example, requires that the
landowner must pay the appreciated value of the land to
the government for getting back the land.
Judicial Pronouncements
After the LARR Act was enacted in 2013, more than 280
cases have been filed in the Supreme Court, challenging
land acquisitions made under the previous law (Land
Acquisition Act, 1894). 272 out of these 280 cases were
RFCTLARR Conference 2018
Proceedings
18
filed under Section 24 of LARR Act.8 Section 24 of the LARR
Act mandates that in cases where land acquisition made
under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894:
Telangana Government from purchase of land under
GO 123 dated 30.7.2015. It shows that courts are not
ready to let the executive trample upon the rights of
the ‘landless’ through legislative innovations.13
a. But an award of compensation had not been made, the
preceeding five years but either the possession was
not taken or the compensation was not paid.10 In
In the case of Pune Municipal Corpn. and Anr vs
Harakchand Misrimal Solanki and Others the Supreme
Court held, in 2014, that compensation would be
deemed to have been paid if it was first offered to
the land owners and then deposited in the treasury14.
However, in the case of Indore Development
Authority v Shailendra (Dead) Through LRS and
Others, the Supreme Court decided, in Feb., 2018, that
once the compensation is tendered unconditionally,
but rejected by the landowner, it is not necessary
that it must be deposited in the Court and hence,
proceedings under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894
cannot be construed to have lapsed. The conflicting
judgements, both by three-member Bench, will have a
cascading effect on pending cases. In March 2018, the
issue has been referred to a Constitution Bench.
83% of these cases, compensation had not been paid,
Another case of far reaching implication is the
in 11% neither the compensation was paid nor the
Gujarat High Court judgement of Nov., 2017 in the
possession of land taken, and in 2% cases possession
case of Reliance Industries Ltd. Vs Union of India
of the land was not taken.11 In 95% of the cases the
Supreme Court ordered the earlier land acquisition
wherein the Court has held that once the company
proceedings to lapse, and in 2% of the cases the
government treasury, the acquisition would not lapse
matter was remitted to the respective High Courts.12
The trend in the judicial pronouncement seems to
if the government had not paid the compensation
have been in favour of the land owners who lose
appeal again the judgement is pending in Supreme
their lands. The approach of the courts is clear from
Court. The outcome of the appeal will determine the
the judgment of the Andhra High Court barring
fate of similar cases challenging the retrospective
provisions related to compensation under the LARR
Act, 2013 shall apply
b. The acquisition under Land Acquisition Act, 1894 shall
lapse if the payment of compensation has not been or
the possession of land has not been taken, though the
award has been made in the preceeding five years of
the enactment of LARR 2013.
c. If the majority of landowners whose land was acquired
under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 have refused
to accept the compensation, they shall be entitled to
compensation under the LARR Act, 2013.9
97% of the cases before Supreme Court involved
Section 24 (2), i.e., where the award was made in the
8
9
10
11
12
Wahi, Namita, Bhatia, Ankita (et. al), Land Acquisition in India: A
Review of Supreme Court cases 1950-2016, Centre for Policy Research,
New Delhi, 2017, pp. 37-38.
See Supra note 1, Section 24.
See Supra note 9, pp. 37-38.
Ibid.
Ibid.
had deposited the compensation amount in the
to farmers or taken possession of the land. The
applicability of the new land acquisition law.
13
14
Ibid.
Pune Municipal Corporation & Anr. v. Harakchand Misirimal Solanki
& Ors, Civil Appeal no. 877 of 2014 before the Hon’ble Supreme
Court.
RFCTLARR Conference 2018
Proceedings
19
The Energy and Resources Institute
SIA KNOWLEDGE HUB
National Conference on the Five-Year Journey of
India Habitat Centre
Background Note on 2nd session:
‘Land Procurement Models:
what have we learnt?
The availability of land is one of the critical factors in
achieving India’s targets for expansion of infrastructure,
and provision of affordable housing for all in the
coming decades. Further, to facilitate investments,
foster innovation, build best-in-class manufacturing
infrastructure and enhance skill development, though its
flagship programme – ‘Make in India’, the Government of
India is building industrial corridors across the country, to
encourage foreign and domestic investment. While states
are in the process of making land available under LARR
Act, 2013, states are also developing other mechanisms of
land procurement for industrial and development projects
in the state. From 2016 onwards, several states have begun
to design new means to procure land, as land acquisition
processes are seen as lengthy and time consuming under
the LARR Act, 2013.
The session ‘Land procurement models: What have we
learnt?, encourages a discussion on different models and
the opportunities and challenges that each one presents.
The three major models of land procurement, other than
land acquisition, will be discussed – private purchase, land
pooling and land leasing. These models are being used
across sectors, and this session will discuss procurement
models for urban development, the renewable energy (RE)
sector, and the development of linear infrastructure such as
roads. Key issues in changing land use categories, which can
broadly be classified as forest, revenue, and private lands,
will also be referred to, specifically the conversion of forest
land. Each model has its unique benefits and challenges,
and the choice of one or the other is determined by both
the regulatory framework created by state governments,
and the specific purpose for which land is required.
I. Private Purchase
Since the enactment of the LARR Act, 2013, it is seen that
the private purchase of land has gained greater popularity,
considering the relatively easier process of purchasing
land directly from land owners willing to sell their land.
Further, the purchase of land is preferred over leasing when
permanent infrastructure is required to be developed.
Typically, the developer purchases land from the owners
under the Transfer of Property Act, 1882. The Transfer of
Property Act, 1882 provides that the right, title, or interest
in an immovable property (or land) can be transferred
only by a registered instrument. The Registration Act, 1908,
is the primary law that regulates the registration of land
related documents.
One of the major challenges of purchasing land directly is
the absence of clear land titles. Nearly 67% of litigants in
civil cases are approaching the judiciary for land or property
related cases, mostly as a result of difficulty in establishing
ownership of land. In this context, the Committee on
Financial Sector Reforms (FSRC) had, in 2009, recommended
moving from a presumptive to a conclusive titling system.
Guaranteed title systems have been developed and
adopted in countries such as Australia, New Zealand,
United Kingdom, and Singapore. To improve the quality of
land records, and make them more accessible, the central
government introduced the Digital India Land Records
Modernization Programme in 2008. The programme seeks
RFCTLARR Conference 2018
to achieve complete computerization of the property
registration process and digitization of all land records.
However, the pace of digitization of records has been slow.
II. Land Pooling
Land pooling has been used internationally for urban
development in Europe, Australia, Tokyo, South Korea,
Seoul and other parts of Asia. The policy is primarily used
for urban development. Land Pooling and its variants are
known by different names, such as land readjustment,
land pooling and readjustment and land reconstitution.
Typically, the concept involves amassing small rural land
parcels into a large parcel, creating infrastructure on this
land and returning part of the redeveloped land to owners
after appropriating the costs of infrastructure and public
spaces. Of the land that remains with the local town
planning or state government authority, a substantial
portion is reserved for setting up infrastructure such
as roads, hospitals, schools and parks and establishing
electricity, water and sewerage networks. The local
planning or development authority usually sells the rest
for financing the costs of the infrastructure and amenities.
In India, concept of land pooling was first introduced in
India under the Bombay Town Planning Act, 1915 in the
erstwhile Bombay Presidency. However, post 2013, several
states have framed or are in the process of framing land
pooling policies and schemes as a viable alternative to
land acquisition. These include Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat,
Haryana, Maharashtra, New Delhi, Punjab, and Tamil Nadu.
A recent example of land pooling policy is that under the
Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Development Authority
Act, 2014 for the development of Amravati, the capital of
Andhra Pradesh. After the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh
in 2014, the Government of Andhra Pradesh required large
tracts of land for its new capital, Amravati. Under this model,
in exchange for land, the government promised a smaller,
but developed plot of land to the title holders in the future.
Started in 2015, the scheme aimed to obtain 38,581 acres
of land. By June 2018, the Government of Andhra Pradesh
had obtained over 33,700 acres under the scheme.
III. Land Leasing
An effective land lease market can significantly benefit
the economy, by making land available for industrial and
other development projects, while providing source of
regular income to the owner. Section 104 of the LARR Act,
2013 states that, ‘Notwithstanding anything contained
in this Act, the appropriate Government shall, wherever
possible, be free to exercise the option of taking the land
on lease, instead of acquisition’. However, in India the
participation in land lease market has been found to be
declining since 1970. Stringent laws related to land leasing
20
Proceedings
and transfer of ownership are argued to be the reason
behind this fall (World Bank 2007). The NITI Aayog’s Expert
Committee on Land Leasing (2016) chaired by Dr T. Haque
has recommended a model agricultural land-leasing law
for adoption by the states
For the land leasing model to be a success, state
governments will need to amend their tenancy laws to
facilitate the entry of industry in the land market, and
promote willing buyer-willing seller transactions. This can
further be strengthened by simultaneously liberalizing
the use of agricultural land for non-agricultural purpose.
Experts observe that a potential hurdle to the land
leasing reform laws is the fear among landowners that a
future populist government may use the written tenancy
contracts as the basis for transfer of land to the tenant.
However, this can be overcome by giving land owner an
indefeasible title. States such as Karnataka that have fully
digitized land records and the registration system have
also progressed in this direction, with a solar park being
established on private lease model.
Thus, the regulatory framework and practices pertaining
to land procurement are evolving, and especially after
the enactment of the LARR Act, 2013, several state
governments and agencies are attempting to develop
new means for the fair, transparent, and just procurement
of land for development. There are significant inter-state
differences with some states taking the lead in innovating
on this front and it is important to understand how the
development of land can be enabled across states. Clearly
there is new thinking, across the public and private sector,
on alternate means of land procurement.
The following issues are germane to the discussion on the
utility of leasing and pooling model:
1. Should each model be driven entirely by market-forces?
2. What are the safeguards against coercion, fraud and
misrepresentation?
3. Would R&R benefits be available to title holders who
participate in these models of land aggregation?
4. What kind of compensation and R&R benefits would be
offered to families dependent on that land for livelihood?
5. How would the environmental and social risks to
communities be addressed?
6. What are the measures for assuring that the intrahousehold allocation of compensation safeguards the
interest of all family members?
7. What would be the contour of the appellate structure for
dispute resolution between developer and landowner?
There is a need to consider the desirability of framing
national policies on pooling and leasing, to act as a
template for governments of states and Union Territories
in designing sustainable procurement models.
RFCTLARR Conference 2018
Proceedings
21
The Energy and Resources Institute
SIA KNOWLEDGE HUB
National Conference on the Five-Year Journey of
India Habitat Centre
Background Note on 3rd session:
‘Social Impact Assessment:
from policy to practice’
According to the Preamble of the Act, The Right to Fair
Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition,
Rehabilitation and Resettlement (RFCTLARR) Act, 2013
seeks to ‘establish a humane, participative, informed and
transparent process’ of land acquisition in India that would
lead to an improvement in the socio-economic conditions
of those dispossessed of their land. These ideals are sought
to be realized through the provisions of Social Impact
Assessment, ‘Free Prior, Informed Consent’ of land owners,
market-linked cash compensation and rehabilitation and
resettlement of Project- Affected- Families.
Section 4 of the Act stipulates that whenever the
appropriate government intends to acquire land for
public purpose, a social impact assessment study will be
conducted in consultation with the concerned Panchayat,
Municipality or Municipal Corporation, as the case may
be. To be conducted by an independent SIA agency from
among the list of agencies or practitioners empanelled
by the SIA Unit, the social impact assessment report
is required to give its findings on whether the project
serves public purpose, the extent of land required is the
bare minimum, alternate sites have been considered and
not found feasible and comment on the effect of the
cumulative mitigation cost of adverse social impacts on
the total project cost vis-a-vis the benefits of the project.
Further, the SIA team, in consultation with local elected
representatives, shall estimate the number of families
likely to be affected and those likely to be displaced and
extent of public and private land and immovable assets
that will potentially be affected. The study shall include a
socio-economic and cultural profile of the affected area
and identify the nature, extent and intensity of positive
and negative impacts, on the community or communities,
as the case may be, along a wide range of indicators livelihood and income, physical resources, private assets,
public services and utilities, infrastructural facilities,
health, culture and social cohesion. The SIA study shall, in
particular, identify the vulnerable sections and examine
the social impacts on these groups. Further, a Social Impact
Management Plan (SIMP) listing the ameliorative measures
to address the adverse impact on each component
(public and community properties, livelihood, assets and
infrastructure, public amenities) shall be prepared by the
SIA team. At the conclusion of the study, public hearing
shall be conducted in each Gram Sabha whose members
are directly or indirectly affected by acquisition of land.
The ‘Jan Sunwai’, is intended to provide complete details
of the project, share the findings of the SIA study, seek
feedback on the report, obtain additional information and
specify the entitlement of compensation, resettlement and
rehabilitation in respect of affected families. The officials
of Requiring Body and the land acquisition, rehabilitation
and resettlement functionaries shall be at hand to address
public concerns and queries. The additional mitigation
measures that the Requiring Body commits to undertake
in response to the SIA study and public hearing shall be
included in the final Social Impact Management Plan
SIMP) submitted to the government. The proceedings of
the public hearing shall be video recorded, transcribed
and submitted along with final documents. The consent of
land owners shall be obtained along with the SIA study.
The SIMP will describe the institutional structures, key
persons responsible for each mitigation measure and the
cost and timeline for completion of each activity. The
RFCTLARR Conference 2018
SIA report and SIMP will be prepared and submitted
in accordance with Form II and III respectively, as per
The RFCTLARR (Social Impact Assessment and Consent)
Rules, 2014.
Transparency has been infused in the process of social
impact assessment by way of public disclosure of
notification for commencement of SIA study, SIA report,
SIMP and constitution of the Expert Group for appraisal
of SIA report. All the SIA-related information shall be in
the local language and made available in the office of
Panchayats, Municipality and Municipal Corporation, as
the case may be, and in the office of District Collector,
Sub Divisional Magistrate and Tehsil. The information
will also be published in local newspapers and uploaded
on official websites. The impact study relies heavily on
public participation through consultation with various
stakeholders and a census or a survey of the families likely
to be affected.
Furthermore, Section 6(1) of The RFCTLARR Act, 2013
mandates the uploading of Social Impact Assessment report
and Social Impact Management Plan on the websites of
the ‘appropriate government’ as one of the means of public
disclosure. Section 3(e) defines ‘appropriate government’
variously, as the state Government or Central Government
or Government of Union Territory, within whose territory
the land to be acquired, is situated. It is, thus, incumbent
upon the governments of states and Union Territories
as well Ministries to place on their official websites, the
SIA reports and the Social Impact Management Plans of
projects sited in their territorial jurisdiction.
However, soon after the law came into effect on 1.1. 2014,
voices began to be raised against the provision of social
impact assessment which was deemed to be cumbersome
and lengthy, purportedly, causing delay in the land
acquisition process. The Ordinance promulgated in May
2014, and re-promulgated twice in 2015, among other
things, excluded a category of projects from the purview
of social impact assessment. The RFCTLARR (Amendment
Bill), 2015, pending with the Joint Parliamentary Committee
since May 2015, proposes to curtail the scope of SIA. The
RFCTLARR Rules framed by states in accordance with
Section 109 of The RFCTLARR Act, 2013 have, to varying
extent, diluted the provisions of social impact assessment.
The RFCTLARR (Amendment Acts) of Tamil Nadu, Gujarat,
Maharashtra, Telangana, Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh
have drastically limited the scope of SIA.
The RFCTLARR (Tamil Nadu Amendment) Act, 2014
stipulates that The RFCTLARR Act, 2013 is not applicable
when land is sought to be acquired under three state laws,
except for the purpose of compensation. These Acts are:
The Tamil Nadu Acquisition of Land for Harijan Welfare
Schemes Act, 1978, The Tamil Nadu Acquisition of land for
Industrial Purposes Act, 1997 and The Tamil Nadu Highways
Proceedings
22
Act, 2001. Since four- fifth of land acquisition in Tamil Nadu
is carried out under the aegis of the aforementioned
Acts, social impact assessment is effectively precluded
from land acquisition process in a majority of cases. The
RFCTLARR (Amendment) Acts of Gujarat, Telangana and
Maharashtra notified in 2016, 2017 and 2018 respectively,
have empowered state governments to exempt projects
related to national security and defence, rural infrastructure
including electrification, affordable housing and housing
for the poor, industrial corridors, infrastructure projects
including those in public-private-partnerships from the
requirement of social impact assessment. Maharashtra
has further added irrigation projects and industrial area or
industrial estates developed by state government to the
list. The RFCTLARR (Andhra Pradesh Amendment) Bill, 2017
that has received Presidential assent in May 2018 has SIA
exclusionary provisions for similar category of projects as
Gujarat, and Telangana. The Jharkhand Amendment Act,
2017 has empowered the state government to exempt, in
public interest, infrastructure projects including schools,
colleges, universities, hospitals, panchayat buildings,
anganwadi centres, rail, road, waterways, electrification
projects, irrigation projects, housing for the economically
weaker sections, water supply pipelines, transmission
and other government buildings from the ambit of social
impact assessment.
The requirement of a dedicated website for public
disclosure of the entire work flow- from the notification
of SIA, decision making, implementing and audit - of each
case of land acquisition, as per Section 13 of The RFCTLARR
(Social Impact Assessment and Consent) Rules, 2014 has
been honoured more in breach than in observance, by
Ministries, states and Union Territories.
It is pertinent to consider the following issues:
1. Does limiting the affected families’ and affected
communities’ ‘Right to be Informed’ and the ‘Right to
be Heard’ undermine the objective of establishing a
transparent and participative land acquisition regime?
2. In the absence of social impact assessment, what
mechanism would be available to identify and address
the adverse social and economic consequences of
land loss to vulnerable and marginalized sections of
communities?
3. Does the existing literature support the contention
that SIA delays the acquisition process?
4. Have the states and Union Territories complied with the
requirement for an independent organizational structure
(SIA Unit) to manage and oversee SIA related activities?
5. Would the preparation of broad Terms of References for
SIA in each sector, while leaving room for demographic
and geographical uniqueness of each project site,
facilitate standardized, quality reporting?
RFCTLARR Conference 2018
Proceedings
23
The Energy and Resources Institute
SIA KNOWLEDGE HUB
National Conference on the Five-Year Journey of
India Habitat Centre
Background Note on 4th session:
‘Rehabilitation of Project-AffectedFamilies: experience of livelihood
restoration’
One outcome of India’s tryst with development has been
the large scale displacement of its population. It has been
estimated that 50 million people have been involuntarily
displaced in the last fifty years (Roy A, 1999)1. Another
report contends that development-induced displacement
accounts for 60 million people if the number of those who
lost their livelihood by virtue of their dependence on the
acquired land are also included (Fernandes, 2007)2. The risks
most commonly associated with involuntary displacement
are landlessness, homelessness, marginalization, joblessness,
increased morbidity, food security, loss of access to food
security and social disarticulation (Cernea. M, 1995; 1997)3.
Prior to the enactment of The RFCTLARR Act, 2013, India did
not have a national law on Rehabilitation and Resettlement.
Several state governments such as Haryana, Jharkhand,
and Odisha, as well as some Public Sector Undertakings
that required land for their business operations had
framed R&R policies. However, R&R planning and execution
lacked focus, resulting in unsatisfactory outcomes for the
affected people. This was a result of various factors – noninvolvement of displaced people in the planning and
execution process, flawed planning, poor provision of basic
amenities such as safe drinking water and sanitation, lack
1
2
3
In Singh, R.S & Shrivastava, M.P, 2006. ‘River Inter-Linking in India:
Dream and Reality’. D&D Pvt Ltd,pp-144
In Cernea.M &Mathur, H. M, 2008.’Can Compensation prevent Impoverishment? Reforming Resettlement through Investment and Benefit
sharing’. OUP, pp-181-207
In Zheng.T,2017. ‘From Landlessness to Homelessness: Exploring
landless farmer’s loss of belongingness after land expropriations
in Urban China’. American Journal of Engineering Research, Vol-6,
Issue-10,pp-281-284.
of foresight in the choice of host communities resulting in
conflicts, grant of unproductive land at new locations and
the challenge of creating income generation activities.
Before a discussion of the R&R provisions of The RFCTLARR
Act, 2013, it would be useful to understand the issue in its
historical context.
The Land Acquisition Act, 1894
Prior to the coming into effect of the new land acquisition
legislation on 1.1.2014, land was acquired under the Land
Acquisition Act, 1894. The colonial law relied heavily on the
Doctrine of ‘Eminent Domain’ to acquire land across the
country, using a process shrouded in opacity that denied
fair compensation to the land owners, conducted forceful
evictions and ignored the need for proper relocation
of displaced families or restoration of their livelihoods.
In the absence of legally mandated requirement for
rehabilitation and resettlement (R&R), states followed their
own policies, or in their absence, court issued guidelines or
project-specific schemes were adopted.
The Sardar Sarovar project, an inter-state project involving
Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, was
the first instance where a project – specific R&R Policy
was framed under The Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal
Award, 1978. Clear guidelines were provided with respect
to the rehabilitation villages in which oustee families were
to be relocated. Further, irrigable lands and house sites
for affected families had to be prepared in advance. The
Narmada Control Board (NCB), in 2006 decided to adopt
the National Policy on Rehabilitation and Resettlement for
Project Affected Families, 2003, for all its future projects
in Narmada Valley. However, the R&R efforts drew mixed
response in terms of the actual benefits to the displaced.
RFCTLARR Conference 2018
Proceedings
24
National Policy on Rehabilitation and
Resettlement, 2003; National Rehabilitation
and Resettlement Policy, 2007
state R&R Policy, by incorporating the provisions of the
National Rehabilitation and Resettlement Policy, 2007.
The first national level rehabilitation policy was made
in 2003 - the National Policy on Rehabilitation and
Resettlement for Project Affected Families. It provided
that if there was a displacement of 500 families or more
in the plain areas, and 250 or more in certain specific areas
such as hilly area or those falling under Schedule V and VI
of the Constitution, then the District Collector would be
appointed as an administrator to oversee the preparation,
and implementation of an adequate rehabilitation plan
for project oustees. The Policy favoured consultation
with representatives of the project affected families,
including women and members of elected Panchayati Raj
Institutions within which the project area is located.
The RFCTLARR Act, 2013 incorporated several provisions of
the aforementioned R&R policies. The Act provides that the
Collector shall pass the R&R awards with respect to each
affected family in accordance with the R&R entitlements
mentioned in Schedule II and III of the Act. A list of 25
infrastructural facilities and amenities have been identified
for provisioning in the resettlement area, to ensure a
reasonable standard of living for the relocated families.
The Second Schedule of the RFCTLARR Act, 2013 offers
the following entitlements to the affected families (which
is defined to include families whose land are acquired as
well as families whose livelihood is primarily dependent
on the acquired tract of land), depending on the nature of
the projects: housing units, land for land (as far as possible
in irrigation projects, and in lieu of compensation), offer of
developed land (in case of urbanization projects), choice
of one-time payment of Rs 500000/- or annuity for twenty
years or employment to one family member, subsistence
grants to displaced families for a period of one year etc.
In 2007, the National Rehabilitation and Resettlement
Policy was notified by the Ministry of Rural Development.
Under this, employment or cash compensation or a onetime cash grant or financial package was available to those
whose land was acquired, as decided by state governments.
In lieu of employment, a monetary compensation was to
be given. Through this policy, provisions were made for
assessing the social impacts of the project on communities
residing in the area to be acquired. The preparation of
a rehabilitation plan required the consideration of the
socio- cultural characteristics of the affected people. The
provisions of the National Rehabilitation and Resettlement
Policy, 2007 were applicable if a project affected 400
families or more in plains, and 200 or more families in tribal
or hilly areas, and certain other specified areas.
R&R policies of state governments and PSU
Several public sector undertakings, state governments and
project authorities had designed their own R&R policies
much before the National R&R Policies were framed.
For example, Coal India Ltd (CIL) had formulated its R&R
policy in 1994, which was modified in 2012, by inserting
the provisions of National Rehabilitation and Resettlement
Policy, 2007, and the Land Acquisition Rehabilitation and
Resettlement Bill, 2011. The National Thermal Power
Corporation (NTPC) developed its R&R Policy in 1983,
which was later revised in 2017, after adding the benefits
mandated under The RFCTLARR Act, 2013. Odisha framed
the ‘Orissa Resettlement and Rehabilitation Policy’, in 2006,
prior to which it responded to problems of displacement
through project specific R&R policies and plans. Haryana
formulated a ‘Policy for Rehabilitation and Resettlement
of Land Owners-Land Acquisition Oustees’ in 2007. This
policy laid down guidelines for the allotment of plots by
the Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) to land
loosers. On its part, HUDA had framed its Oustee Policy in
1987, in 2010, it adopted the provisions of the Haryana
R&R policy of 2007. In 2008, Jharkhand formulated the
RFCTLARR Act, 2013
Though, The RFCTLARR Act, 2013 has enacted
comprehensive measures for the rehabilitation and
resettlement of P-A-Fs, but this aspect of law has not quite
received the attention it deserves. There are not too many
stories of successful rehabilitation of affected people. For
the most part, the land acquisition process is deemed to
be complete, particularly from the standpoint of Project
Proponents, when the possession of land is obtained.
However, for uninterrupted operations, businesses would
do well to win the trust and acceptance of the local
communities, a significant part of which would come from
restoring the income earning capacities of the affected
families. With scarce resource base, limited education and
inadequate skills, the tribal and rural communities affected
by land acquisition require special assistance to become
economically self reliant.
In this context, it is pertinent to consider the following issues:
1. What tools and processes are required to formulate
and implement technically sound R&R plans to ensure
that displaced families do not face unemployment, lack
of access to basic services, and rising poverty levels at
resettlement sites?
2. What are the inter-linkages between social and
environmental impact assessments, and the R&R
strategies which are formulated? How can sitespecificity be incorporated into R&R plans?
3. What is the nature and extent of compliance with the
R&R provisions of The RFCTLARR Act, 2013, by states
and Union Territories?
4. What are the lessons to be learnt from best practices at
the state level, as well as internationally on R&R?
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INAUGURAL SESSION OF THE
NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE
‘FIVE YEAR JOURNEY OF THE RFCTLARR
ACT, 2013: THE WAY FORWARD’
Initiating the Day One session, Ms Joyita Ghose, Associate Fellow, TERI, welcomed everyone to the two-day National
Conference on the ‘Five Year Journey of The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition,
Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013: The Way Forward’. She expressed hope that the conference, over the course
of two days, will take stock of the performance of the Land Acquisition Act and also try to identify emerging challenges
and opportunities in the years to come.
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WELCOME ADDRESS BY
DR AJAY MATHUR, DG, TERI
We are all here with the common objective of looking at the
performance of the fair compensation Act, which was passed
five years ago. Five years have brought a lot of learning and what
we want to spend these two days on, is how have we performed,
what are the best practices, and can we do things better. In a
sense, the second session is at the heart of the larger discussion
about how we move ahead, which is about the land procurement
models and what have we learnt from them. That, of course, then
informs the third session, which is on social impact assessment,
which is a key factor of the fair compensation Act as well as the
rehabilitation of the affected persons, which will be the focus of
the fourth session tomorrow. I think, we have moved a huge step
forward with the Act, both in terms of how we visualize land as
well as in terms of how we visualize the relationship of people
with land. One of the things that brought TERI to this issue was
that land is not taken to be a major resource, though, it is
increasingly becoming clear that it is the major resource,
as far as this country is concerned. We are as concerned in
TERI about the deteriorating quality of the land as of the
quantity of land itself. Now, to a very large extent, these
two days are about the quantity of land, but what I would
like to suggest here is that we need to be concerned
about the quality as well. And hopefully we will meet
again to discuss issues of quality, and how the quality of
land can be enhanced, because, in my view the Act is also
looking at the qualitative issues, though this is something
we have not focused on. So, let me again welcome all
of you to this conference, and I thank you all, one, the
speakers for sharing their thoughts and experiences and,
two, all of you for your presence in, what I hope, will be
a stimulating two day conference. Thank you very much.
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27
OPENING REMARKS BY
DR RAJAT KATHURIA,
CHIEF EXECUTIVE, ICRIER
Ajay, at the outset, let me thank you for inviting me
here to deliver the Opening Remarks. It’s a privilege to
be here. Indian Council for Research on International
Economic Relations (ICRIER) and TERI do a lot of work
together. So, it is always a delight to work with partners.
There is no gainsay in the fact that land acquisition is extremely
important to our development process and what Ajay described
as, what you are going to do over the course of next two days will
reflect on the progress that we have made since 2013. And I think,
one of the key changes that Ajay discussed is the compensation
paid to land owners, and we know that in the 1894 Act, it was
biased against the landowners, sort of reversed in 2013. After a
lot of things happened, including Singur and Nandigram, the
LARR 2013 came into being and a lot of people argue that it went
to the other extreme. So, from being biased in favour of
the colonial masters, the State, and the State authority, it
went to the other extreme, to being biased in favour of
the landowners. There are going to be trade-offs, there
is no policy that would be, in some sense, economist
like to describe in text-book, a Pareto Improvement,
like everybody becomes better off. And that’s unlikely
to happen in practice. So, what happened, I think the
experience of five years will show and does show, that
the process of LA became much slower although there
are exceptions that are listed in the Fourth Schedule on
projects that the State can act decisively. But, in general,
for industrial corridors, for Special Economic Zones, for
national manufacturing zones, the process will get a
little truncated and it will become a little slow because
of procedures. Nobody will deny compensation, I think,
compensation is an inalienable right for the landowners,
you can’t exploit and abuse them. There would be people
who would say competitiveness of Indian industry,
which is already at a low level, despite the depreciation
or devaluation of exchange rate, would be affected by
this large compensation and solatium payments, four
times the market value, etc. But I don’t think anybody will
argue, definitely, not in public but not even in private, I
think nobody will grudge the increased compensation to
land owners. I mean it will be difficult to do that, given the
years and decades of low compensation and exploitation.
I think land is a crosscutting issue, it affects everything
and it’s not discussed as much as it ought to be discussed.
There is a reason why it should be discussed a lot more,
the discourse should be much more. That reason is - we
are at the stage when our development will take off,
some people say that we have taken off, we have become
a middle income country, although, a low middle income
country. But I think the next two or three decades are
going to be decisive for India, the reason being
urbanization. Where is the land for urbanization going
to come from, what’s going to be the fate of industrial
corridor, and what is going to happen to that productive
land that we use for agriculture? From Independence
till today, or, at least, till the point we have data, which
is the 2014-15 net sown area under agriculture, has
shown a trend of increase, only in the last couple of years
there has been a marginal decline of the net sown area,
RFCTLARR Conference 2018
under agriculture, so 46% of land area of India is used for
agriculture purposes. The fear is that as the development
process takes off, as urbanization becomes more and more
entrenched, and we know there are figures, that show
that we would have 800 million people living in cities,
by the year 2050. I don’t remember the exact numbers,
urbanization is going to be a sort of mass movement,
there will be lots of migration from rural to urban areas,
and then there will be areas that will be redefined as
urban. Then, there will be demand for industrial projects,
there will be demand for housing, there will be demand
for affordable housing, etc.The fear is that instead of fallow
or uncultivable land being brought under the process of
urbanization, a lot of agricultural land will fall prey to this
process. And, I think, we should be watchful of that, in the
sense, that if we plan urbanization properly, if we plan
our process faster, the amount of land that we give-up
from agriculture to urbanization, can be much reduced.
But if we continue business as usual, then, I am afraid,
the number and amount of hectares that are brought
away or taken away from agriculture and brought into
industrial and urban zone will be very large. And that
will be detrimental to our own interest, as a nation with
1.7 billion people by the end of century. That is going to
be huge, 1.7 billion people, a workforce of 1 billion, it’s
a very large number. Therefore, we have to cater to food
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security as well. Of course, as we have seen in the past, the
Malthusian proposition doesn’t always work out because
of technological progress but we will need to ensure
that not only agricultural productivity increases, but also
the nature, the quality of land, that is brought under the
process of urbanization is not productive agricultural
land.
I think that’s the fear and, therefore, the key, while we
increase the compensation and while we do the social
impact assessment, while we get prior consent from
previous landowning classes, we have to look at the
paradigm of development that India is going through.
And that paradigm as, I said, is one, where our rates of
growth will take off. If the Gods are kind enough and
the stars align in our favour, we should see an eight plus
percent growth, beginning as early as the next couple of
years. Some people are hopeful that this rate of growth
could be even higher, because, we not only need that
growth for our development, we also need that growth
so that, in case, the compensation for land is too high,
under the current Act, then the State is able to have
those resources to be able to subsidize the process of
land acquisition. The thought is, in order not to harm the
landowners, if you want to subsidize production, then
the State needs to have adequate resources, to be able
RFCTLARR Conference 2018
to compensate the landowners. The State capacity, we
will have to discuss, both in terms of implementation and
also in terms of calculating fair values, holding those SIA
and public meetings that the Act talks about. I emphasize
that this is an area which has been under-appreciated
and there ought to be a lot more discourse on this.
I will just conclude by saying that I spoke about
urbanization but urbanization is not a process that you
see in isolation. Urbanization has to be seen also in the
context of industrialization. Arthur Louise, the noble
laureate, talked about the turning point when you move
away from agriculture much more into industrialization
and urbanization. The process of urbanization is not to be
seen in isolation but for the jobs for which people want
to be in cities, people move to cities for jobs. And we have
to create manufacturing zones, and industrial zones and
for that land is extremely important. The size of India’s
land holdings, agricultural land holdings are so small. The
size of India’s manufacturing and industrial zones, when
you compare them to China, they just dwarf, and the fact
that China was able to use its special industrial zones
and export zones to create jobs for the people that were
migrating from the rural areas. Although their process
was a little constrained, administered and managed, but
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still they were able to create jobs in labour-intensive
industries. And if we are to do the same thing, provide
jobs to one million people that enter the labour force
every month, that number has been disputed, but let
us take it as an order of magnitude, if we had to provide
jobs, then urbanization, industrialization and job creation
have to be seen in context of that. That is the point I am
making. If the compensation is seen to adversely affect
the competitiveness of Indian industry then the GST
should give enough tax revenue and non-tax revenue
to the government to be able to subsidize that process,
as all countries have done. The industrial policy has been
a key instrument that China and Japan and Korea and,
before that, everybody has used in their development
process. We should not shy away from using industrial
policy, we have to use it creatively and smartly under
World Trade Organization (WTO) multilateralism, we
have to see how we can use subsidies and instruments.
But, the State has to step in, this is an area where you
cannot let the market function, if not to determine prices,
the State has to manage this process very well. And I
think the challenges for India are much more as we take
off than they were in the past. I will stop here. Thank you
very much, for listening to me and thank you, Ajay, once
again, for inviting me.
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INAUGURAL ADDRESS BY
DR N C SAXENA,
FORMER SECRETARY, MINISTRY
OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT
Thank you very much for this opportunity to share my views
with you on land acquisition. I must admit that my views are
very unorthodox on the subject and twice I tried to convince
the Government to accept my views. First, as the Secretary in
the Ministry of Rural Development, I prepared a note and took it
to the Cabinet and it was strongly opposed by many ministers. I
recall Mr Nitish Kumar, he was the Railway Minister, he was very
much against what I had said. So, it was not accepted and then,
years later, as a member of the National Advisory Council, I recall
there was a committee set up by the Government, in which I was
a member, Mr Jairam Ramesh as Minister of Rural Development,
he chaired that committee. This committee was supposed
to have prepared a draft and I had very strong differences
with Mr Ramesh on various issues. Ultimately he said,
look here, you are not the minister I am the minister, so
let me decide, so my views were again not accepted. Let
me, friends, try for the third time to convince what needs
to be done as regards LA.
First of all, friends what is generally not known and, which
is very obvious to me, is that when land use changes from
agriculture to industry, employment per unit of land
goes up by 10–100 times. The general impression is that
agriculture is more labour intensive than industry. But my
argument is that per unit of land, employment generated
is very high in industry or in non-agriculture professions,
maybe urbanization, as compared to agriculture. Let
me give a few examples here. We are sitting in Habitat
Centre, the total area of Habitat Centre including all the
buildings, restaurants, etc., is nine acres, which is about
3.5 hectares. In 3.5 hectares, only two families could do
agriculture, they both would be small farmers, because,
they both would have 1.75 hectares of land which is
for a small farmer. So, if we were to do agriculture on
these nine acres, only two families could survive with
great difficulty, but, as you can see, hundreds of people
get employment in Habitat Centre and, maybe, indirect
employment would be even higher. Take for instance, the
India International Centre. Its total area is four acres, four
acres is less than two hectares. Only one farmer could
survive if he were to do agriculture on that. And again,
as you know, hundreds of fellows get employment there.
One hectare of land is 100m x100m, now if you were to
set up pan shop which would require only 3mx 3m, then,
in 10,000 sq. mtr. land, 1000 pan shops can be set up.
So, therefore, this fallacy that agriculture is more labour
intensive than industry needs to be corrected. Certainly,
agriculture is more labour intensive per unit of capital. If
you are short on capital, do agriculture but if you are short
on land, do industry, rather than agriculture. That is point
number one that we have to keep in mind.The other point
is, and there, I would disagree with Mr Kathuria, that if
you look at the overall value of land in land acquisition or
what the industry pays, land has always been just about
2%–5 % of the total cost. I would say one could go up to
RFCTLARR Conference 2018
10% but, generally speaking, it has never been more than
2%–5 % of the total cost. Out of that, much of this money
is spent on indirect cost which doesn’t go to the farmers,
it goes to mafia gangs, to bureaucracy, to politicians,
it is because of delays, uncertainties, court cases, etc.
Hardly 1% goes to the farmers. On this I would certainly
like TERI and other research organization to do a little
more research, as to, in the last 10-20 years, of the total
money which has been spent on setting up plants, what
percentage has gone to the farmers. Let me again give a
few examples here. We have all heard of POSCO; POSCO’s
total cost at that point of time was being shown as
`54,000 crores. And if you look at the notes on POSCO,
this would have displaced about seven hundred families.
One per cent of `54,000 crores would be `540 crores,
and `540 crores in the numerator divided by 700 families,
it comes to `80 lakhs per family. Therefore, if you were
to spend 1% of your total project cost on the farmers,
each farmer would have got Rs 80 lakhs. And we all know
that the Government went from `2 lakh to `11 lakhs,
not beyond, therefore, the project had to be shelved. 1%
would have given `80 lakhs to each family.
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Another example, take another capital intensive industry
a power plant, a thermal power plant of 4000MW. A large
power plant of 4000 MW will cost about `25000 crores
and this would require around 200 hectares of land. If
you take the Indian average, each household has about
0.8 hectare of land. So 200 hectares of land means 250
families. `25,000 crores is the total project cost, just give
1% to the farmers, each farmer becomes a crorepati. So,
the money which actually goes to the family can be easily
increased many times, provided the whole process is
made simpler, provided the whole process becomes such
that there is no uncertainty and the land can be given
to industry within few months, which serves a social
purpose even if we are trying to procure/ acquire land for
private sector. It promotes employment and, therefore, it
serves a public purpose.
The proposal which I had prepared as Secretary, Rural
Development; when I took it to industry they were very
happy. I said you deposit 10% of your cost, and I promise
within 3 months I will give you land. They said it is very
good proposal, we would be very happy. But when the
RFCTLARR Conference 2018
same thing went to cabinet, I said, every farmer would
get whatever is his gross production, he will get twice
the amount of gross production every month. This is
what I had calculated, but the Cabinet thought it was too
high, and this was really not feasible, so, therefore, it was
not accepted.
The third point, we should keep in mind is that most
of the land needed for acquisition is in central India,
it is the poorest region, has the most number of tribal
people. It is also very rich in minerals and in forest
wealth. Unfortunately, this is also the area where land
records are in a very bad shape, historically, British were
not interested in going to tribal areas, they did not keep
any land records, it was ghetto region, it was undulating,
agriculture was not productive, land revenue was not
forthcoming, much of that area was under princely states.
In princely states the administration was weak, therefore,
for various reasons, the actual possession of land by tribals
was never recorded. Mr Jairam Ramesh, in his book, has
very clearly admitted that his objective in formulating
this law was to make LA very difficult so that it would
promote willing buyer-willing seller proposition. Now,
willing buyer and willing seller proposition can work very
well in Noida or in Punjab or in Haryana, in developed
regions. It cannot work in tribal areas, first of all, the land
records are in a very bad shape because tribals are not
very familiar with market conditions. There is information
asymmetry, and what will happen is that the poor tribals
will not get compensation, since their possession has not
been recorded, and then we have many laws in the tribal
areas. Tribals cannot sell to non-tribals, so there would
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be mafia gangs, there would be all kinds of subterfuges,
which industry would have to deal with. So, it is very
important that we have governmental intervention,
governmental intervention should lead to a win-win
situation. Unfortunately, the colonial law, I would say, was
a very lose situation for some, let industry get land, let
government get land, let some people lose out, so that
others can benefit. Of course, a large number of people
do benefit when land is acquired but the locals who have
to give their land, they lose out. Now, the present law is
such that, I term it as lose–lose situation. We have made
land acquisition very difficult, all kinds of committees
have been set up, even if you want to acquire half an acre
of land, you have to do social impact assessment and
you have to set up many committees. Then, there is an
expert committee, which will go through the report of
the social impact assessment, there is an R&R committee,
there is a state-level committee, there is a national
monitoring committee, there is an expert group, all kinds
of committees have been set up in this law and a large
number of NGOs will be involved in this.
In fact, in one of the articles in The Indian Express, also in
Business Standard, I have said that this law is anti-farmer
because of uncertainties and delays. Even if you want
to acquire one acre of land it will take five years, so the
file will go through 200 hands. So, it is anti-industry, it is
anti-farmer, but is certainly pro-bureaucracy, and procivil society. Civil society will be very happy with this
law, because so many committees will be set up, they
will keep moving around in cars with red lights. So, this
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is giving jobs to civil society and not to help farmers. One
point we need to keep in mind if we are to acquire land
in those areas where farmers are not very well aware
about their conditions, markets are not perfect, and land
records are not in a good shape then this willing buyer
and willing seller proposition may work in some places
but not in others. It is quite possible to have a win-win
situation by simplifying the whole procedure by giving
powers to the collector. In the old law, collector had all
the powers, in the present law, collector has no power,
everything has to go to the Chief Secretary. Why can’t
we delegate it, if 10–20 acres of land is to be acquired,
delegate the powers to the collector, have an open
meeting, decide the compensation and you can settle
is acquired the value of land goes up, in ten years it may
go up by ten times to hundred times. Around Hyderabad,
20–30 years back, there were lot of wastelands available
there which were sold by farmers between `2–`5 lakh an
acre. Now, the same land is about `2–`5 crores an acre, so
prices go up hundred times, farmers feel cheated. They
say, look we got only two lakhs, whereas now the price
is `2 crores.
the matter and give land to industry. In the present law,
you find that certain points are very good, I am very
happy that there is a consent clause, at least, it applies
to non-government projects and compensation has
been increased. Although, I had proposed it should be
six times the market value, it is only twice in urban areas,
it is four times in rural areas. But most states have not
accepted, and in most states it is two-three times. What
I had suggested was six times which was not accepted.
benefit from the escalation in prices which takes place.
Unfortunately, if you read the law it says that this will
apply only when no development has taken place in that
land. This means that if I am the first buyer of that land, I
can just plant a few trees and say development has taken
place now. So, I am free to sell and nothing will go to the
original owner of that land. How to make farmers benefit
from escalation is again a point which has been ignored
in the present law.
So, friends, the other problem in the law is that it doesn’t
give any scope for negotiations. It says the compensation
would be twice the market value. The other problem
is that when you do direct negotiation for land, your
compensation is one time. Small farmers will get lower
price, large farmers who delay giving land would get a
higher price. Apart from that, as you all know, when land
The other point, friends, is that we have in central India, a
lot of land that is recorded as either forest or non-forest
land but is under cultivation by tribals. Now, forest land
or the common forest land is not private land, therefore,
there is no acquisition of that land. That land is resumed,
land use would be changed, that’s all, which means that
no compensation would be paid. I may be using that
I had suggested that in the law we should provide that
whenever there is a transaction, for the first twenty
years, 20% of the difference will go to the original farmer,
because, the Preamble says that when the farmers’
land is taken they should be made stakeholders. They
would become stakeholders only when they are able to
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land for gathering minor forest produce or as habitat but
I will not derive any benefit if that land is transferred to
some project.
Interestingly, in the colonial period when railways were
being constructed from Howrah to Delhi, farmers in Uttar
Pradesh objected. They said this was common land which
they used for grazing, how could the Government just
acquire that land? Sometime, in 1870-1872, the colonial
government passed The Waste Lands Claims Act. The law
provided that, even if the wastelands were being used
by the Government and the land-use changed, people
who used that land for grazing or some other purpose,
would be compensated. Unfortunately, sometime in the
1980s, this law was repealed. Jairam Ramesh did say that
he will come up with some kind of law on this subject,
but so far there is no such law, which will compensate
farmer or those who are using common lands, or forest
lands, except, where the forest land is covered under the
Forest Rights Act. Then the Forest Rights Act provisions
will apply. The total forest area in India is about 70 million
hectares, so far, only 8 million hectares has been covered
under the Forest Rights Act. This means that, out of
the remaining 62 million hectares of forest land, if you
transfer land to industry or for urbanisation, then the
people who are using that land do not get any benefit.
Except, if it is under Scheduled Area then, of course,
consent would be necessary. The clause for taking the
consent in Schedule Area or taking the consent of Gram
Sabha is good. But, if it is non-schedule forest area, then
again, transfer of land will not require any consent and
the people do not benefit. The situation is the same with
respect to the Common Areas and Common Lands, which
are not forest land. There is a lot of land which is called
waste land or Paramboke or Gram Sabha land, which,
if applied to other uses, the traditional users will not
benefit. So friends, the new Act has some good clauses,
the consent clause is very good, compensation has been
increased. Rehabilitation is one issue on which we will
talk tomorrow, so, I am not saying anything on the R&R
aspects of the law. But, because it results in delays, it is
not in the interest of the farmers. The other point, which
is often raised is why don’t we just lease out land. Rather
than acquire land, lease out to the industry. Friends, there
are many problems. As you know, land is a state subject
but land acquisition is on the Concurrent List, which
means the states can make a law on land acquisition,
provided they take the consent of the Government of
India (GoI). And GoI can make a law on land acquisition
for which it has to consult with the state governments,
not obtain consent, that is the constitutional position. But
land is a state subject, GoI cannot make any law regarding
land use or land ownership, the states have their own
laws, and there are four different laws, which, I think,
stand in the way of industrialization. One, in many states,
land cannot be leased out, such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar,
Telangana, etc. Of course, there are states like Punjab,
Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu, where leasing
is possible, but in half the states leasing is not possible.
The other problem is that land-use cannot be changed
in states unless you take permission from the collector
or the state government, which means, if I am a farmer
and I want to set up industry on my own land, I cannot do
it. I need permission from the state government or from
the collector, which, again, is not a very desirable law. The
third constraint is, in some states like Maharashtra and
Karnataka, non-agriculturists cannot buy agricultural
land. We all know the case of Amitabh Bachchan, when
he wanted to buy land in Nasik, he could not do so.
Then, he had to say that I have land in Barabanki in Uttar
Pradesh, therefore, I am an agriculturalist, thereafter he
could buy land in Nasik. So, there are still states, there are
laws where land cannot be bought by a non-agriculturist.
The fourth constraint is that in many states, marginal and
small farmers cannot sell their land. In Uttar Pradesh, if
you have less than 1 to 5 acre, you cannot sell your land.
If you have less than 8 acres of land in Delhi you cannot
sell your land, you cannot become landless. Now, all
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this made sense hundred years back, when agriculture
was the only profession, but also because of various
agitations, the Deccan riots of Pune, was one such factor
that led to the law in Maharashtra that non-agriculturists
cannot buy land. Now, I think, we should really examine
the necessity of these four laws.
Lastly, friends, let me also say something on the gender
issue. If you look at land ownership, you find that land
is generally owned only by men and not by women.
Women may be doing cultivation, men may be doing
non-agricultural work, but women have, unfortunately,
still not become owners of land. It so happened that I was
Secretary, Revenue in Uttar Pradesh, then I was Secretary,
Rural Development in GoI. So, for a long time I worked on
this subject. I had this very sensitive, very honest and very
good minister in Uttar Pradesh, so I went to him and I said
that I want to change the law in the state. At that time,
the law in Uttar Pradesh was that if a landowner died, the
land would only go to his male children. I said, “Sir, I want
to change this law”. He said,“Saxena Saab, you can change
the land ceiling to 5 acres from 18 acres, distribute all the
land to poor people, I will readily say yes. But, this can
never happen that women receive land, this will cause
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quarrels in families, it is not right at all”. So, he did not
accept my suggestion that women and daughters should
also inherit agricultural land. Then, as Secretary, Ministry
of Rural Development, Government of India, I went to Mr
Gujral, the then Prime Minister of India; I said, “Sir, I want
to change this law, rather than ask the states to make
any changes, we should introduce a law in Government
of India, a Central Law that there can be no law which
is discriminatory on gender issues and, therefore,
states cannot have laws which say women cannot own
agricultural land. He looked at my face and said, “Jats are
not going to like it”. He thought of his own constituency,
Amritsar, and thought that if women were given land, he
might lose election in Amritsar, so he didn’t agree with
my suggestion. Ultimately, friends, as a member of the
National Advisory Council, I convinced Mrs Sonia Gandhi,
and she said, “Fine, this is very good”, and we were able
to amend the Indian Succession Act in 2005. Now, there
can be no state law, which is discriminatory on gender
issues and, therefore, all inheritance laws must change.
Unfortunately, even today many states have not changed
the law, in Uttar Pradesh even today, married daughters
are not legally allowed to inherit land. Unfortunately
again, neither the Ministry of Rural Development nor the
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36
Ministry of Women and Child Development have issued
any circular. Why don’t we have a centrally sponsored
scheme, which says that, by 2030, at least 20% of land
should be in daughter’s names or women’s names? So,
friends, what I am trying to say is that the land acquisition
law would benefit women only when they are the owners,
and, therefore, we should also ensure that the Indian
Succession Act, which was changed in 2005, is properly
implemented. So, friends, I will stop here, as I have said,
it is quite possible to convert the present Law, which is
lose-lose, to win-win, by making it simpler, by increasing
compensation, by ensuring that land is made available
to industry, which, as I said, is highly labour intensive,
because employment per unit of land is very high in
industry rather than in agriculture.
Joyita Ghose: Thank you. I would now like to invite
Dr Preeti Jain Das to deliver the vote of thanks. Ma’am
is currently a Senior Fellow in TERI and also an officer of
the Indian Revenue Service. She leads the work at TERI
on land management and has been instrumental in
conceptualizing, organizing and making this conference
a reality.
Dr Preeti Jain Das, Senior Fellow, TERI: It is, indeed, my
privilege to thank Dr Saxena for gracing the inaugural
session and providing insights into the overall land
acquisition scenario in the country. Thank you very much,
sir. A special thanks to Dr Kathuria, for accepting our
invitation at a very short notice, gracing the occasion,
and for your comments, sir, on the land market in the
country. Thank you. The two-day national conference will
deliberate on the emerging land acquisition scenario in
the country. It will discuss the course corrections required
to ensure that the ideals enshrined in the Preamble to the
Act are fulfilled. It will also look at the direction in which we
are headed. The deliberations will, hopefully, contribute to
policy, practice, and research. A very warm welcome to all
the delegates here. I hope you will enjoy your stay at TERI
and I hope you will find this conference a very enriching
experience. Thank you very much.
Session 1 The RFCTLARR Act, 2013:
State of the Law
Joyita Ghose:The objective of this session is to understand
the extent to which the 2013 LA, Act has facilitated the
availability of land for industrial and infrastructural
projects and the implications of state amendment Acts,
in this context. The keynote address for this session
will be delivered by Dr Nirmala Buch, Former Secretary
in the Ministry of Rural Development, Government of
India. She has held several key policymaking positions
in the Government of Madhya Pradesh as well as the
Government of India. She is the Chairperson of the
National Centre for Human Settlement and Environment,
Bhopal, as well as the Chairperson of Mahila Chetna
Manch, an organization that has done pioneering work
in the field of women’s rights in the country. I now invite
Dr Buch to please deliver the Keynote Address.
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KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY
DR NIRMALA BUCH,
FORMER SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF
RURAL DEVELOPMENT
Friends, let me begin by thanking the organizers and TERI,
for giving me an opportunity to come and share some of my
experiences, more than that, learn from what you people
have been doing. I will also take you from the land of think
tanks, to where the action is. Because, I live in the area where
action is to be taken and where the problems are. We know
the LARR Act has brought a paradigm shift to the whole issue
of acquiring land. Land in India is not only an economic asset,
it also has sentimental value. Those who are dependent on
it are dependent not only for economic reasons, but also
because that’s all they know, that’s all what they have. And
they have no opportunity to move away from them, if they
really had options, I think, they would have taken a good
price for it and left. But that’s not a very easy thing to do.
Mr Saxena made my work easier, by raising a lot of issues.
The Act, its implementation, and the changes which the
state governments have made have created problems.
Shri Saxena was also kind enough to bring out what
was the intent in Delhi. It did appear that the law was
being made more complicated than simpler. But that’s
how we all work. By and large, we see a problem and
we find solutions, which are more complicated than the
problem itself. That’s what has happened with this Act,
because there are problems. But it is not difficult to solve,
provided we have the intention to do and we have all
the knowledge.
Quite often when we talk of land, we think certain lands are
available. Mr Saxena gave some information that showed
that land is not available just like that. It is my contention,
and I think, you can find out on the ground that if there
is land which is cultivable, it is being cultivated. You may
see it as government land, you may say it is forest land,
it may be private land. It is being cultivated by someone.
It is not available just like that unless it is non-cultivable,
even there, sometimes, people try to cultivate it, because
that is where they live, that’s all they know. So, when land
acquisition has to take place for industry, for urbanisation
and all that, the question is, how do we acquire? In the
2013 Act, it is a complete paradigm shift as to how you
look at land acquisition. Earlier, it was a one-sided affair,
the State wanted, the State took and the cultivator had to
accept, along with all the problems of how harassed he
felt, when he got compensation, the size of compensation,
the manner of it, and so on and so forth. For instance, in the
case of Narmada we have seen tremendous problems as
far as land acquisition is concerned. It was not something
which could not have been handled, but still there were a
lot of problems. Now land will be acquired under the LARR
Act. The good thing about it is that it creates a role for
the stakeholders, namely, the farmers, to know about the
acquisition, to participate in the exercise and, hopefully, to
get a good compensation.
Having said it, there is lack of understanding about what
needs to be done subsequently. The key factors in this
law are social impact assessment and public hearing
RFCTLARR Conference 2018
which leads to a dialogue and sharing of information to
the farmers whose lands are going to be acquired. But,
many problems arise when you do the social impact
assessment (SIA), when you do the public hearing
because the handling of that issue is not always simple.
This is because those who are handling it do not have
empathy with the land losers. I am saying it with all
authority because this is what I see on ground. We find
that there are some organizations that conduct SIA
with empathy. There are some organisations which are
basically consultants not knowing what the area is, not
knowing the subject and they have to produce and
give what you want. So, even in SIA there is a need for
institutions to know what is the purpose, how it should
be done, they have to know the area where they are
working and the population for which the study is being
done. I have talked to some of the officers who have
been handling the subject. Generally, you find there are
two types of officers, those who think it is an unnecessary
encumbrance, unnecessary work, it causes delays. But
there are others who have found value in it. And they have
found value in the whole issue of conversation, dialogue
and the subsequent public hearing. Some of them had
told me that when they had this talk, they found that the
farmers became their partners. The officers, who do not
want to talk, feel that SIA is a cumbersome process and
it causes delay. Projects get delayed if you don’t do the
work properly. Let me give you an illustration that when
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the spirit is imbibed by the officers and others, it can make
a difference. There was project near Bhopal in which 28
villages would be submerged, it was very valuable land
because it was very close to urban areas. The villagers
said, “Hum log toh bilkul doob jaenge” (we will definitely
drown). Some of us took up the issue and found that, it
was possible to have a different option, namely, that you
don’t need to have a big dam, you could build barrages.
The DPR was changed, now they are going to have river
bed barrages instead of a dam, therefore, land was not
lost. It is possible that if the spirit of the law is understood
and you work accordingly and, if, those who are working
with government from outside don’t have their agenda
of making big statement, then, I think, things can happen
differently.
The same thing can happen in the case of urban
development. Let me give you a different example why
the spirit of this law is not always accepted. For instance,
a decision was taken earlier in Madhya Pradesh that if
anyone’s property is acquired in the designated urban
area then, instead of cash compensation, they will be
given, what is called, TDRs or Transferable Development
Rights, under which you can have more FARs, etc. Instead
of cash compensation, a landowner will be given a piece
of paper. Some of us feel that the piece of paper is not
going to be very useful, unless they have a market which
is possible only when there is industrialisation. If you
don’t have that market for it, the piece of paper will be of
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going to be affected, their rights, etc. But they should
also be positive and say what can be done. Quite often,
they say, “humara kaam toh ye nahin hai baki sab aap
jodo, woh yeh nahin hosakta lekin kya ho sakta hai aap
nahi bateinge”(This is not our work, we were supposed
to inform you, which we did, now you join the dots). They
have to become positive partners in the process, if they
want to work on the side of the land losers.
I agree with Mr Saxena that time is important, how fast
they can give the land to you so that you can start the
project. The present Act takes a lot of time and that has
to be addressed. Secondly, once their land is taken they
have to be compensated quickly. A company can also
give them stocks, in addition to cash. Mr Saxena rightly
said that if the land is taken today and the farmer finds
that the value has gone up hundred times, he/she would
feel cheated, he/she should have a share in it. There can
be ways of farmers getting a share in the increased price
of his asset.
I see the whole spirit of the LARR Act is participation,
consent and discussion; if that spirit is imbibed, then a lot
of things can be done without any problem. I know what
Dr Saxena mentioned about the tribal areas, in the tribal
areas also, you can do it if you want to do. Women have
been given coparcenary rights in the Hindu Succession
Act, but, the problem is that it remains on paper, because
there is no social security. If they take the share where
will they go? I am raising the issue of women being given
equal rights in law but denied in practice, so that we
can discuss it in this session. All the laws which are there
to help vulnerable groups, face problems. In Madhya
Pradesh, they did go ahead and said women will have
the Right to Property. When the policy was initiated, we
found that when a father died, the names of girls were not
entered in succession records, because they said, “humko
nahin chahiye” (We don’t want it). We suggested that the
names can be entered, if she wants to give she can give
later. Now, panchayats were given the powers to give this
documentation. They said,“Hum jhagde mein nahin padte,
na hum kanoon ke khilaf kaam karenge, na hum ladkiyon
ko denge”. (We won’t get involved in fights, neither do we
want to go against the law, nor do we want to give land to
girls). They walked out and then they started entering the
names but, thereafter, they started giving in by registry
that we don’t want what our brothers should have.
Because, there is no social security, if something happens
what will they do. The whole issue of land is about the
state of power relations, family structures and what sort
of social security do people have? Therefore, women will
not get the benefit which the law provides, if we do not
work consistently to make them aware of the rights and
also give them viable options to exercise it.
Secondly, there is a role for not only the officials, but also
for the civil society groups. Civil society groups do very
good work in giving information to the people who are
I also feel that there are those who are not very keen
about this law and its implementation. They feel
that efficiency and time limits are important for land
no use, because the person has to sell, within, five years,
or the extended time frame. I recollect when the land
reforms took place in 1950s, and states made the laws
for zamindari abolition, the ex-proprietors were given
the bonds for 15 years or so. They sold it for 15%–20 %
and got out, they were not going to wait for 15 years. But
the document was valid even after 15 years, there was
a capital value to it. In this case, the TDRs will not have
value after 5 years. When you can construct a house or a
floor illegally, why will you buy TDR? This causes a conflict
between land losers and those who want to save money.
If you are looking for speed, the intent of the Act will not
be achieved.
RFCTLARR Conference 2018
acquisition and they should go ahead with it. But,
I think, there should be this distinction between clinical
efficiency and effective lasting development. If you have
the farmers and land losers as partners, then there will
be better and lasting impact, rather than going very
fast and saying that you have delivered by taking the
land but subsequently face roadblocks. If, those who
are on the side of clinical efficiency in promoting urban
development or industrialization, also see that there are
people on the other side, including women, then, I think
development will be sustainable. Unfortunately, today,
those who are implementing things are emphasising
on being number one. But what happens beyond the
quality, etc., that is not taken care of in the same way. So,
the vulnerable group should be looked at in the whole
process, they should be aware of what the State has given
and the state personnel and the civil society groups have
to work together so that the Act succeeds in its intention.
At the same time, I think there is a need to look at some of
the details. The LA process should be fair, faster, speedier
and should be understood by all sides, so that you can
have development, as well as fairness and justice for the
farmers and land losers. Thank you.
Joyita Ghose: Thank you ma’am, for sharing your
perspectives, and also outlining the gaps between the
Act, on paper and in practise. We will now continue with
the panel discussion which will be moderated by Mr H S
Meena, currently Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Rural
Development. The speakers for this session are Mr Anil
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40
Gupta, Executive Director, Land Management, Airports
Authority of India; Dr Mahesh Kumar of the Federation
of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and
Mr Ravindra Shrivastava, Senior Advocate of the Supreme
Court.
MR H S MEENA,
Joint Secretary,
Department of Land
Resources,
Ministry of Rural
Development
It is a very important and relevant topic for the
development of the country. Let me give you the
background of this Act and the present scenario in the
country. I have been continuously working on this subject,
since, I think, more than 22 years. When I joined service,
then Shri N C Saxena was Director in the Academy. He
has been my Guru, and he has been my trainer also. So,
at the outset, I may be excused, because there are certain
views which maybe contrary to the views extended by
Mr N C Saxena. I have a slightly different opinion about
this Act. As a collector for nine years in seven districts,
I implemented this Act and the previous Act. And, as a
Secretary and Principal Secretary of the Department of
Revenue in the Government of Bihar from 2011-2014/15,
I made certain policies on this Act, when this was
implemented. From 2015 till today, I am struggling as a
Joint Secretary dealing with land acquisition in the GoI.
RFCTLARR Conference 2018
Now, let me raise certain issues to trigger the discussion
on this subject. You may be aware that land acquisition
comes under the Concurrent List—Serial no. 42 of
the Concurrent List—which means that the Central
Government and the state legislatures are competent
to enact laws. The land acquisition process is placed at
Serial no. 18 and 45 of the State List, thereby Central
Government cannot make any Rule, Policy or Act. Unless
and until, the Central and state governments work
in close coordination, it will be next to impossible to
implement this Act. The Land Acquisition Act, 1894, you
may be aware, was a colonial Act, so, it was governmentcentric. In one simple sentence—you give me your land
and you get away. Whatever I am offering, you have
to accept it, you have got no right to differ from the
government stand—this was the earlier Act. Now, in the
present Act, there are three layers of public grievances
redressal system, that is—an administrator at the project
level, the Rehabilitation and Resettlement Commissioner
who is usually divisional commissioner or equivalent
officer, then the Authority which is headed by a single
judge, equivalent to the district judge. Now the question
is, should we have such a long-drawn structure for the
redressal of public grievances for the LA process? There
are both points of view, it may delay the process of land
acquisition, thereby delaying the whole development
process in the country or, on the other hand, it may give
a platform to the farmers, to the aggrieved person, to
redress their grievances, thereby reducing the litigation
cost, and the cost overrun and the time overrun of
the project.
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I will give you a brief overview of the status of land
acquisition for projects using the current Act which will
make you optimistic. I was feeling slightly depressed
about this Act when I joined as a Joint Secretary of this
Department. But after collecting field data, I am quite
positive. Two months ago, I collected data about the land
acquired under this Act and the previous Act, over six
month period, and I will tell you that the land acquired
under this Act was four to five times more than the earlier
Act. So, it is not that this Act is difficult, complex and
delays land acquisition for the development projects.
Second, this Act has certain features, different from the
earlier Act. First, it is consultative, democratic, transparent,
and it has a mechanism to fix accountability. Officers may
be prosecuted for lapses under Section-85-90 of this
Act, starting from the lowest functionary to the highest
functionary that is, from Patwari to the Secretary. The big
question is, whether the Secretary should be punished
for the omission and commission of the Patwari or the
Tehsildar or the collector. We have calculated the time
period and we have prescribed a table which is available
on the website of the Department. If you allow the
maximum permissible time, then the total time required
to acquire land using the normal process is 59 months
for any LA project. There are certain assumptions, that
the project is very large, involves huge displacement
of population and Rehabilitation and Resettlement
packages and making provisions for land for land. If you
take all these parameters then the maximum time period,
required to acquire a land for any project, any project
means power project, irrigation project is 59 months, that
is the maximum permissible. However, the average time
taken by the state governments and central agencies are
18–20 months, while the average time period, using the
previous Act was 24–27 months. So, it is not that this Act
is very difficult, although there are certain complexities,
omissions, and difficulties in implementation of this Act.
Out of the three years that I have spent in DoLR, two years
have been spent in the Department of Legal Affairs, for
consultations about the provision of this Act. You might
have heard there is a difference of opinion even in the
Honourable Supreme Court. You might have heard that
in Pune Municipal Corporation case, in the interpretation
of Section 24(2), the stay period has been excluded from
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So far we have received seven amendments from the
seven states. I will tell you that none of the states have
come for amendment of the provisions, other than Section
24(2) and for the monetization of the Rehabilitation
and Resettlement packages. These are the two areas
where most of the states feel that there are difficulties in
implementation of the Act, otherwise, as far as timelines
are concerned, they don’t have any problems.
the counting of the five years. The Bench stated that since
the person has gone to court for his own benefit, so the
stay period should be excluded from the five years. In
the Indore Municipal Corporation case, the three Judges’
bench of the Honourable Supreme Court have said that
the stay period should be included in the five years. So,
it is slightly difficult for a common man, for ordinary
officers who are working in the field, who are working at
state level, to interpret such difficult Sections.
Out of the seven states, five proposed amendment in
Section 24(2). It means that the administrative machinery
has grossly misused their power; this means you have
not completed the LA process, especially the award, and
payment of compensation to the farmers, even during
the five years. This Act has provided an exemption of
five year period for ongoing land acquisition, after which
the provisions of this Act will be applicable. If you have
not completed the LA process including the preparation
of the award and paying of the compensation to the
farmers, within five years, you can very well imagine
the fate of the farmers and their families. Suppose, we
are told by the state government, by the respective
government or the respective authority that, “you work,
but you will not be given salary for five years?” What
will happen to our family and our dependents in such a
case? For the farmer, the compensation, the agricultural
production is his income. It has been seen that in
most cases, in the past, compensation, rehabilitation,
resettlement packages have been not provided. This
is because there was no compulsion in the 1894 Act. In
the present Act, Section 38 says that, without providing
the Rehabilitation and Resettlement Development Plan
which the project-affected families have to accept in
writing, you cannot displace them. We have collected
data for the 1894 Act which shows that, out of the total
displaced families, about 85% of the Project-AffectedFamilies were not rehabilitated, 96% of whom were
tribals. Now the question arises whether we should
have such a comprehensive Act, or we should go for a
legislation which is very simple and similar to the earlier
one? Because of the problem in the implementation of
the previous Act, especially for the R&R of the farmers,
this Act is so detailed. I have not seen even a single Act
wherein the Circular of a Ministry has been referred to.
If you see the definition of public purpose in Section
RFCTLARR Conference 2018
2 of this Act, there is a reference to a Circular from the
Department of Economic Affairs.
So, the framers of this document have tried to articulate
everything clearly and curtail subjectivity of the
bureaucrats in the field, who are primarily responsible
for the implementation of this Act. Another problem is
that the provisions of Schedule I, II, III of this Act have
been made applicable to 13 Central Laws, which are
mentioned in Schedule-IV of the Act. In Schedule I, II, III,
there are certain provisions which are to be notified by
the ‘appropriate government’, but since land is being
acquired using other Acts, such as The National Highways
Act or The Coal Bearing Act, etc., the question arises as to
who is the ‘appropriate government’? Whether it is the
‘appropriate government’ mentioned in the Central Act,
which is primarily responsible for LA or the ‘appropriate
government’, which is mentioned in Schedule I, II, III of
this Act. These issues have been primarily addressed and
Ministries have been informed accordingly. We are now
encouraging the state governments to come to us for
amendments or suggestions, in case of difficulty. Now
most of the state governments are comfortable with the
Law. I think most of the doubts have been clarified and
now the process of LA has picked up. I will try to verify
after collecting the data. But, as I have experienced,
most of the institutions, that are primarily responsible
for the implementation of this Act, or Schedule I, II, III, in
case of Central Ministries, lack capacity. This Act is not as
simple as the previous one, so it requires a lot of capacity
building, especially for the frontline functionaries, who
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are responsible for preparing the award, payment of
compensation and acquiring the land. Because there
are certain issues, about which one has to be very clear
before you start the LA. Earlier, Project-Affected-Families
were defined as the loser of the land, now there are
three categories—the land losers, the agriculture labour
and the service providers like carpenters, blacksmiths,
etc. It is very difficult to even identify the particular
labour who has been primarily working on a particular
field, which is subject to acquisition. So, unless and until
there is comprehensive and intensive capacity building
of officers in the field, it would be highly difficult to
understand or comprehend the various provisions
of this Act and implement them in the field. Because,
if you misinterpret any provision of the Act, I think it
has huge financial implications. It may seem to be an
exaggeration but it is a fact that this Act is much simpler
than the previous Act. In the previous Act, there was a lot
of subjectivity resulting in large number of litigation. In
this Act, the civil courts are barred from entertaining any
litigation, only High Courts and the Honourable Supreme
Court can entertain appeals. Now, the litigation cost and
litigation time will be less, if you implement in true spirit.
This Act provides a complete guide to officers, there is no
scope for subjectivity.
MR ANIL KUMAR GUPTA,
Executive Director, Airports Authority of India
I come from the Airports Authority of India (AAI). I will
try to give you a brief account of what we are doing in
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the aviation sector, and how the provisions of the new
LA Act are impacting the whole aviation sector, because
Airports are now being developed not only by AAI, states
are also coming forward to develop the airports. AAI, as
you may be aware, is a statutory authority created by the
Act of Parliament. We don’t acquire the land ourselves
for developing airports. The Central Government or state
governments transfer the land to AAI. And, whatever land
is required for future developments, that is acquired by
the state governments and passed on to the AAI on freeof-cost basis.
The basic idea for doing this was that projects for airport
development itself are very capital intensive, like power
plant. And, the aviation projects have to be taken as
economic drivers. So, the states were willing to come
forth for providing land to the AAI. Earlier, we did not
face so many issues in acquiring the land. As of now,
AAI has about 56,000 acres of land, probably, after the
railways and defence, we are the third largest owners of
land. About 80% of the land is operational area, about
10% of the land is on the terminal side, which we call the
city side. We are trying to develop it for the commercial
purposes also, as the Railways are trying to do, so as to
cross-subsidize the cost of travel.
The basic idea is to make aviation available to all the
people, so the cross subsidy has to happen. We are aiming
to continue with the same growth rate in the next ten
years, as we have seen in the last 5 years or 10 years, we
have grown by about 17%–18%. You must have seen that
most of the airports are getting choked, even after lots of
development and investment. In the case of Delhi, as of
today, we are handling more than 65 million passengers,
growth is 18%, it looks good but is difficult to manage.
If it happens continuously for 4 years, your whole plan
goes bust.
Now, we are coming up with a second airport at Jewar
also. The point that I would like to bring to the table is,
for a project of the magnitude of a second international
airport, the cost of LA is becoming huge. Probably, it is
because the airport is in the urban area. The new Act
has also played a role in increasing the cost. As sir was
mentioning, the land cost in a project should be in the
range of about, say 5%, at the maximum. Just to give
a brief idea, in case of Jewar project, the land cost is
coming to around `4000 crores in Phase I. And the cost
of construction would not be more than `500 crores.
How do you make the project sustainable? Because, the
ultimate aim is somebody who is putting in the money,
the state government or the Central Government, or a
PPP developer, must earn profit. A PPP developer is not
going to invest money for the land. Then, how does
the state government get the money? Does the state
government have that kind of money, to cross subsidize
in the times to come? Policymakers would have to think
about how to bring the land. Unless land is provided,
airports cannot be built. We require not less than 1000
acres of land for an airport, ideally it should be 2000–3000
acres of land. Everybody wants an airport not more than
half an hour from the place where he stays.
Right now we are building airports in 5 cities, second
airports are coming in Delhi and Mumbai. Chennai is
on the threshold, Pune is already there, we are looking
at Kolkata, but there is no land. The way the state
governments are aligned, it is becoming very difficult
to acquire land. So, we have to really think about the
provisions of the LA Act, so that land is made available.
In the last budget, the Government of India has disclosed
its vision for the aviation sector to grow by 4 times the
present passenger numbers in the next ten years, under
the Nav Nirman Yojana. So, we are looking at 1 billion
tickets to be sold in the next ten years. Ultimately, two
trillion would be invested in the aviation sector by
different stakeholders. If the cost of the land itself is
going to be 40% or 30%, it is not going to be feasible. I
am just bringing out the issues facing us, it is not directly
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related to the LA Act but, definitely it touches upon it. If
the GDP is growing at 8%, the passenger numbers will
definitely grow by 12%, so to manage 12% growth will
be a challenge.
Now, I will just touch upon the challenges which we
have been facing in respect of land acquisition. One of
the things, that I mentioned, is the huge cost. My senior
colleague just made a mention about Section 24(2), it is
also impacting us in many ways because, in certain places,
AAI has also acquired land. An airport is developed in a
phased manner, like the Delhi Airport, where we acquired
the land in 1960s. At that point of time, 5000 acres of land
was acquired, that is the reason why we are able to expand
today, otherwise, this airport would have been closed 10
years earlier. We have used 2000–3000 acre, we are now
going to build four runways here, then it will be able to
sustain up to 2035. The point is that Section 24(2) is also
impacting us, because part of the development happens
after a five year period also. There is also Section 101
which mentions that development has to happen within
five years of acquisition. We would like exemption from
this provision. I think we have already placed it before the
Committee which has been set up for the Amendment
Bill, it will be good if the Government decides to exempt
us from these stringent provisions. Ultimately, we need to
have land, if today we have 2000 acres at one place, later, I
cannot have land at some other place, like a factory or an
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industry. I require contiguous land, which is a challenge
for the airports.
The other challenge is that, at a few airports developed
in the last 5 years, rehabilitation and resettlement is
becoming an issue. We pay the rehabilitation costs to
state governments but they have not rehabilitated the
people. Now, with the new Act coming into force, the cost
of rehabilitation has once again increased by three times.
This is the reason we are not committing to the state
governments that we would bear the R&R cost, because
we do not know what would be the ultimate cost. So, we
try to impress upon the state governments to provide us
the land, free of cost and free of all encumbrances. Let us
know upfront what is going to be the total expenditure,
so that we can budget our provisions, accordingly.
As Mr Meena mentioned, things are improving. Once
the Act has been established, we can look for few
amendments. The entire Act will not change because it
has come after much consultation at the legislature and
bureaucratic levels. So we’ll have to live with it and find
some ways to mitigate those 2–3 issues which I have
mentioned.
Rather, I would say there are certain benefits from the
new Act. Under the emergency clause, we have been
able to negotiate certain lands very quickly. At one of the
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locations we were able to acquire the land in 6 months,
although, we paid a higher price. So, we agreed to pay
that price, but we were able to acquire that land in
6 months’ time, which would have normally taken two
or three years.
Now, you would appreciate that as the airports develop,
there is an all-round economic development. As sir was
mentioning, paying two or four times is also not sufficient
in many cases. We have decided that we will go for the
land pooling policy in developing a few airports. So
that we make the landowners truly a stakeholder, try to
bring in their land, definitely, we will give them some
employment as well. But let them also progress and
become a partner in development. Certain governments
allow pooling, for instance, the Gujarat government
allows land pooling in a very good way, so we are trying
to do it in that manner. Maharashtra also allows land
pooling. We are doing a study, probably we will approach
the GoI about how to undertake land pooling. Because,
Andhra Pradesh has done it, we tried to do it for the
new Boggapuram airport as well. That is the only way
we can bring landowners together and try to reduce
the cost at the initial stage. And let them be partner, if
we let the airports develop, the economy develops. As
was mentioned earlier in the day, the land prices would
increase by ten times, by paying two times today, we can
make the farmers or the landowners agree. Let them be
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a partner in the profit that may accrue at a later date.
That is the idea, which we are trying to explore, and if
our intent is to build 100 more airports in the next ten
years, we will have to look for some innovative solutions.
The way the conventional things happened, this will
not take place, because ultimately people would like to
be benefitted. And as a GoI organization, our idea is, if
some development is happening, it is not only we who
should prosper, it is the whole system, the economy in
and around that area, region or the state that should also
prosper. So land pooling is an idea that we are looking at.
During the discussions in the course of these two days,
probably a few more ideas would come up and we would
be very receptive as is our team here. With these words,
I conclude.
Mr Meena: Thank you very much. He has referred
to Section 101 regarding the requirement to use the
land within five years of acquisition. The definition of
‘development of land’ defined in the Rules framed for the
Union Territories (UTs) says that if the Department has
made provision in the budget, money has been provided
to the officers who are implementing the project, that is
to be taken as compliance of the law. Section 26(5) says
that, within two months of the notification under Section
11(1) you have update the circle rate. Recently, land
owners have filed a case in the honourable High Court of
Gujarat that circle rate have not been revised since 2011.
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affected because of the slow acquisition of land. This
is a highly politically-sensitive issue and the present
Central Government has also been weighing its political
options. If we really go to the keywords of the Act, take for
instance, the public purpose, the list is so comprehensive
it practically covers all the LA requirements. They talk
about the affected family, as per Section 3(c), it covers
even the affected family having land to the decimal place.
There is a misuse of this provision, leading people to
divide their land artificially into small pieces and selling
them through organised network, thereby, increasing
R&R costs.
DR MAHESH KUMAR,
Federation of Indian Chambers of
Commerce and Industry
I am speaking on behalf of Federation of Indian
Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), for the
implementation concerns of this Act of 2013, which we
are implementing since 1 January, 2014. The earlier Act
was almost 119 years old and it was a colonial Act. But
we have to visualise two things now. As per the old Act,
we could acquire the land in, say, a maximum period of
36–39 months. As per the new Act, we are taking almost
54–60 months. In a democracy we have a government for
sixty months and if we keep acquiring land for 60 months
we all know how things keep changing after every 60
months when government changes. That perspective has
to be kept in mind, we all agree, on one basic premise that
the pace of acquisition has slowed down. And concerns
are expressed by various state governments, as well as,
various departments regarding the new provisions,
complexities of the new Act and difficulties being
faced because of this new Act, and we can’t overlook all
those things.
I will just be flagging few issues, which are really
hampering the whole system because of implementation.
We all know that the country’s economy is bound to
achieve momentum with the passage of time, and how
the country will be affected, how the economy will be
affected, how the gross domestic product (GDP) will be
Adversely affected families have to be defined
appropriately. Scheduled Areas are covered by Section
3(zd) but it doesn’t cover the tribal areas of the North
East region which is very important for us. Involuntary
displacement has been left undefined. R&R has been
covered in such a way that they are either very lengthy
to implement or tedious to implement; I will tell you how.
This Act mandates for a social impact assessment prior to
initiation of LA. Dear friends, you all know, how the revenue
system of the GoI has been inefficient, no mutations,
no transfer of land on the papers. It’s the most rotten
organisation of the GoI, the Revenue Department. The
senior IAS officers may excuse me for being slightly harsh.
You want to start the social impact assessment before
initiation of LA, and in this process, you have to call all the
landowners and you don’t know who the landowners
are. Say, if you leave some landowners in between and
you carry out the whole process for months and months
together, then again there is a cycle repetition.
Friends, do you know, that in tribal-dominated areas,
accurate estimation of land has not been done since
1912. How would you acquire the land and how would
you carry out the social impact assessment? Then,
consent of landowners is another big challenge for
everybody. Then, the social impact management plan
is required. I fail to understand that when we have
environment impact assessment, was this social impact
assessment really necessary? You know how many public
hearings are taking place? For social impact assessment
we have two public hearings. Six public consultations
are the mandatory part of EIA and, subsequent to that,
the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change
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(MoEFCC) comes in. Then, hearing takes place as per the
Forest Rights Act, so multiple hearings are conducted.
This is how things are moving. We want to build the
highway in two years but we cannot acquire the land in
five years. What sort of an Act is it? We want to have the
construction for Asian Games within two years but we
are not able to take decision for five to six years. So there
is a need for a lot of improvement in this Act. Then, the
creation of SIA Units has become a substantial challenge.
Then there are different yardsticks for SIA, for instance, for
irrigation projects there is no social impact assessment
but you will conduct the EIA. Similarly, a copy of SIA report
has to be made available to the EIA Authority. Till SIA is
not completed, you cannot move to EIA, so it is taking
almost double the time. If I visualise from the project
concept to site implementation, there are 12 cycles and
steps. With the kind of working in the government, you
cannot presume how much time it is going to take.
Subsequently, if you see the flow chart for diversion of
forestland, there are seven steps and in-between there
are other back references around those things. So, we
need to re-look at the whole Act. We need to bring out
ordinances as fast as possible. It’s a good Act, the spirit
is good, but the implementation methodology needs
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to be changed. Then there is the problem of multi-crop
irrigated land; there are 8 states, which have brought all
these conditions in a different way. Let us understand
and analyse, one of my senior lawyer friend is here, why
maximum litigations have occurred in the past two
years, maybe, because of Section 24 of the Act. Why we
cannot bring out ordinances for this, and save the human
resources and save the human hours.
Similarly, Section-26 deals with market value. At multiple
places there are inflating market values now. The
property dealer mafia has come out with inclusion of
highest value sale deeds, in a short span of time, thereby
notionally inflating the market value, for determination
of rates, and subsequently, rich are getting richer. There
is a cumbersome procedure for preparing the R&R
Award and there are 28 steps that need to be filled, for
a bigger landowner, even for a small landowner. Then
the multiplication factor for rural areas, some states have
adopted 2, another state has adopted 1.1, and another
state 1. Is it fair? Two states having the same boundary,
here you are getting two, there you are getting one. It is
highly unfair.
In conclusion, I must say that the efforts and objectives
for the enactment of the new Act are well appreciated.
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However, the implementation of law is more important
than just the creation of legal policies. The concerns
raised are genuine and are faced by many organisations.
These need to be examined and appropriate ordinances
need to be brought out in the shortest possible time. The
policymakers may do well to address these concerns, to
create a win-win situation for everybody, it would be an
earnest wish that this Act becomes a working document
that facilitates and contributes to overall socio-economic
growth of the country and, particularly, its citizens.
Mr H S Meena: Thank you Maheshji. Maheshji has largely
talked about the time period of the old Act, and the new
Act, he has concerns on the pace of land acquisition and
SIAs, Schedule Areas, then forests, the conversion of forest
land for non-forest purpose and the preparation of the
Award and Sections 24(2) and 26, especially, the inflation
in the market value in order to get higher compensation
and Award. As a district Collector of several districts, I
have also acquired land for thousands of projects, you
tell me a single project in the previous Act where you
have not conducted SIA. Although, it was not a part of the
Act, but it was next to impossible to acquire land unless
and until you assess the Project-Displaced-Families, the
likely resistance in the field, the infrastructure. But there
is a difference, earlier it was optional, it was at the marzi
(will) of officer, he could do at his own will, now there is
a compulsion. From the date of notification, you have to
complete SIA within six months,that is the only difference.
Regarding Section 26, I have clearly mentioned in the
definition that during the SIA, if middlemen or mafia
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try to artificially inflate the unit rate of the land in order
to defeat the provision of this Act, the Collector has the
right to discard those values. I have mentioned what is
the meaning of the inflation rate, that whereever there is
a difference of 10%, from the average, there should be an
inquiry in the field because from the date of notification
of SIA, to the date when you actually calculate the
market value, there is a time lag of approximately 10–
12 months. During that period, it is possible that the
mafias, the middlemen, and the non-farmers will try to
manipulate the things in such a way that they can get
profit. The collector has been given the power to stop the
registration. The collector has got ample power under
Section 71 to conduct an inquiry and stop registration of
a particular area for the time being. In order to actually
avoid those situations, the first step is to approach the
collector and apprise him about the likely project which
is coming in that particular area, he will issue written
instructions to the sub-registrar that unless and until it
is urgent and required in the interest of the farmer, he
should not allow registration of land in that area. You
cannot have a uniform multiplication factor across the
country, you cannot have the same multiplication factor
for Delhi and Uttar Pradesh and same for Rajasthan, for
example, Jaisalmer. The basic spirit of multiplication
factor is to compensate for the difference between the
circle rate and market rate. He has apprised about the
difficulties which the industries are facing in acquiring
the land. Thank you very much. Now, I would request
Shrivastava ji to give his views about the litigation aspect
of this Act.
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If you want to know what would be the prospect of such
a challenge, if your interest is to know the sustainability
of such challenge, I am sorry, I am totally helpless. I cannot
say as to what would be the outcome of the challenge,
because, our experience shows that the courts these
days are neither predictable nor are consistent. It’s a
legislation which was called for, with the evolution of the
democracy in the country, the economic development
and prosperity of the people, which is the aim of any
welfare government.
MR RAVINDRA SHRIVASTAVA,
Senior Advocate, Supreme Court
I wish to thank the organisers for organising this seminar
which is most appropriate, it calls for a review, after five
years of the working of the Act. A bigger thanks to them
for inviting me to be a part of this seminar and I will take
this opportunity to place my views. The organisers have
asked me to speak about a limited aspect of the issue
and within a limited time. That aspect is litigation, which
either has arisen, or is likely to arise because it has the
potential to arise.
As has been told now, seven states have come forward
to make amendments in the Act, in purported exercise
of their legislative power. As Mr Meena has already
enlightened us that this subject falls in the Concurrent
List and the states are claiming that they have the power
to legislate, after obtaining the assent of the President.
I will address this issue a little later. If the answer is
whether these state legislations, which are seen as
diluting or tinkering with the framework of 2013 Act can
be challenged or not, my answer is very clear. Yes, it can
be challenged. Perhaps, all that you require is to have
the resources to engage good lawyers in the court. And,
you know from your experience of reading the
newspapers and watching the television these days,
anything and everything can be brought to the court,
it can be challenged.
The Act has a long title, it has a Preamble which has
pieced everything about the key features of the 2013
Act. And, it is very unique. The 1894 Act was a colonial Act
and it was enacted in a particular context by the British
Government. As Mr.Meena has very rightly said that it
was very government-centric, it was a unilateral exercise.
All that you needed to do is to issue a notification
claiming a particular purpose to be a public purpose,
which, of course, has a semblance of a public purpose,
complying with the procedure of the Act. Two
notifications were required under Section 4 and Section
6. Section 5 of the Act contemplated inquiry which was
conducted some times, objections were sought, those
were reviewed, sometimes, they were not gone through,
invoking the urgency provisions of Section 17. Urgency
provision was a very subjective exercise of power and
then, there was an award, possession was taken and the
people languished, waiting for compensation money. My
experience as a lawyer has been that, many times, even
the possession was taken without initiating the land
acquisition proceedings, under some statute. That was
the kind of authority which the government exercised.
It was only giving rise to unrest and dissatisfaction. And
there had been very violent agitations also, costing life
and damage to property. Mrs Buch has emphasized and,
very rightly, that the key aspect of this Act is to make it
participative and inclusive. Very often, the problem is
of economic rights versus property rights. Many of us
would know about the doctrine of ‘Eminent Domain’, in
the legal parlance, it means the ruler, king or the Crown
or Government of the day has absolute power to take
back the land from the subject. All that is required to say
is that there is a public purpose and you would be paid
compensation for it, of course, fair compensation. So,
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there has been a conflict between the two competing
aspects of the same object, namely, development, where
there is the economic rights and the property rights.
Of course, the property rights of the individuals will
have to give way to economic development and that
has to take precedence. But that would lead to a lot of
dissatisfaction, people will think that a fair procedure
has not been adopted, there has been arbitrary exercise
of power. The Act of 2013, and, I must comment those
who were involved in the drafting gave it deep thought,
they have put in tremendous amount of industry, it has
certain basic features. In constitutional parlance, we have
been calling the important, very untouchable features
of the Constitution as basic features. Likewise, I also find
that in the Preamble to the Act, there are basic features,
which are fundamental to the scheme and the frame of
this Act. And those are a consultative exercise, because
consultations are required with the local bodies and
a participative exercise with the landowners and the
affected families. The process has to be transparent, it
has to be fair, the compensation has to be paid, there
has to be compulsory R&R. The Preamble states that
the cumulative outcome of all these things would be
to produce a project for implementation which has
been largely accepted by people of the local area or
the concerned area and can be easily implemented
because they would realise that this is something which
is coming up for their own good. As Mr Meena has said
that SIA is not something new, he is quite right. I have
done a lot of cases where land was acquired for projects,
for the power plants, and for other industries. Whenever a
request came, either from the company, land beneficiary
or even the government agencies, an internal exercise
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was always undertaken to examine the feasibility of
LA with least hindrance, with least disturbance to the
people, without causing much unrest and dissatisfaction.
Otherwise, it was impossible, because, if the authorities
went to the spot, there would be agitation with hundreds
and thousands of people resisting and nothing can be
done. So, some sort of participative process was in place.
Under this Act, it has now been made mandatory. There
are two provisions, I am limiting my address only to those
two situations, where the acquisition is sought to be
made for public purpose for private–public partnership
(PPP) or for private companies. The extent of that consent
has been defined, in the first proviso to Section 2(2), 70%
in the first case and 80% in the second case. It appears
these are considered as a very serious obstacle by certain
segment of the stakeholders in implementation of the
Act. The other requirement of a mandatory nature is
the determination of social impact assessment and the
determination of public purpose. The third is with regard
to food security. Multi-crop irrigated land would only be
acquired as a last resort with adequate safeguards.
I am very shocked to find that within five months of the
implementation of this Act, the Central Government came
up with an Ordinance and for what? For doing away with
the requirement for obtaining consent and for whomPPP and for private companies, complete annihilation,
so, if there is a public–private partnership model, there
is some public purpose, then you are not required to
take consent of the landowners, it is a total exemption.
Similarly, by introducing Section 10(a), through an
ordinance, it empowered the state government, at
their discretion, to exempt projects from SIA and
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determination of public purpose and also, the provisions
of Chapter 3 related to food security. Nobody doubts the
power of the Parliament or the very limited and rarely
exercisable authority of the President or the Governor
to promulgate an ordinance, which is an executive Act.
But the question is, what was the background for this,
what were their thoughts and was the time period of five
months’ enough? I don’t think the Act was even given a
fair chance to work it out itself. I am absolutely convinced
that it was only a demand of certain section of the people
who thought that the Act was a hindrance. And, thereafter,
repeated promulgations of the ordinance took place,
till the matter landed in the Supreme Court. Thereafter,
the Amendment Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha, it
was supported by the majority and, we know how the
Parliament functions. It was passed in the Lok Sabha, I
am not aware how much discussion took place on the
subject, but, yes, it went through. It came to Rajya Sabha,
where it faced a lot of problems and had to be referred to
a Joint Committee of the Parliament, sometime in 201516. The Parliament is still seized of the matter, whether
or not Section 2(2) should be amended to dispense with
the requirement of consent and whether Section 10(a)
should really be in the present form, with total exemption
or with some conditions. When it did not get through the
Rajya Sabha, a club of states were advised to exercise
their legislative power of amendment, the matter
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being in the Concurrent List, after taking the assent of
the President. We see three or four states with Gujarat
taking the lead, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra,
or some other states have just copied and pasted the
ordinance. Section-2(2) is verbatim, without change
in comma or full stop while Section 10(a) is absolutely
verbatim. Other provisions with regard to the involuntary
acquisition, payment of lump sum amount, even the 58%
of the compensation that is payable is all verbatim and
the President was pleased to give his assent. We are not
aware how the assent of the President was sought, the
level of consideration by the President and the quality
and content of the assent given by the President. If an
occasion comes we will do that and, the courts will
definitely look into it, because there is nothing today that
is beyond the pale of judicial review, including the power
of the President to give assent to an amendment or to a
law which, prima-facie, is repugnant to the parliamentary
law. There is no doubt about the repugnancy, but what
saves those state amendments is only the assent of the
President and that can be challenged.
I will make my submissions with regards to the legality
of these amendments a little later but I am only on the
procedure right now. I see these amendments not only as
dilution of the 2013 Act but as a very annihilation of the
Act because SIA, consent and public purpose assessment
constitute the basic features of the Act. There is only one
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sentence in the Statement of Objects in the Bill that, it
is to expedite the project execution. As if 2013 Act is a
stumbling block.
In a project, which is of utmost importance in the interest
of the nation such as a defence project, a project of
national security you can provide for a shorter time for
SIA. You can, perhaps, do away with some non-essential
procedures for SIA. Likewise, if there is a requirement of
consent, instead of 80% consent for projects by private
companies, you can reduce it to 50% or 51%. You may
say 50% is good enough, the requirement of 70% can
also be lessened, but you cannot totally do away with
it because you are then completely excluding the class
of landowners from the process of acquisition. Don’t do
that. That will become counter-productive. That will only
give rise to resistance. And why do you presume that
the functionaries executing SIA would be insensitive to
issues of public interest and national importance and the
welfare of their own self. They can be educated. The rural
population is also very alert, they are very intelligent,
they are wiser than us, they can be educated. But on
some hypothetical assumption that projects would be
delayed if these procedures are followed and, therefore,
need not be followed, that’s completely wrong and it
shouldn’t have been done. My views on consent are with
regards to procedure, because, I see that this entire state
legislation as a constitutional fraud. This is done with the
tacit support and consent of the Central Government.
When the matter is sent to the President for assent
and his assent is obtained, I want to know how much
disclosure has been made about the repugnancy and
its effects before the President for enabling him to take
an informed, considered decision about whether to give
or withhold the consent. That is a matter, which will be
examined by the courts one day, I am very sure.
The Parliament has been completely bypassed, it is a
complete overreach by the state governments, this is
about the procedure. However, with regard to the legality
and propriety of these provisions, I do feel that consent
provisions need to be reasonable. In the name of giving
participation to the landholders, we cannot give a tool in
their hand to hold to complete ransom. I am not in favour
of giving absolute power to people in the name of their
consent, it can be misused. At the same time, it would
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not be in the interest of the people and in the interest of
development to do away with consent.
I have a suggestion, which can possibly be taken note of by
very distinguished officer, Mr Meena. I recollect that there
are provisions in the old Act, like The Telegraph Act and
The Electricity Act, consent was required for acquisition
of private land for the purposes of erection of the towers,
poles, etc. We have several laws in mining sector for
taking consent of the landowners, before the grant of
the mining lease or prospecting license because
ultimately it is their land. But there is nothing like
absolute consent. I recollect that when consent was
withheld for reasons which were not justifiable or which
were absolutely untenable, then there was a provision
to approach a judicial authority for determination
of objections. A similar machinery can be created to
examine the withholding of consent by landowners, by
judicial authority or the quasi-judicial authority within
a limited period of time and what he decides becomes
final. The SIA provision has a very salutary objective, it is a
very wholesome provision and its complete annihilation
for the sake of PPP and private company’s interest is
absolutely illegal, as it violates the basic features of the
2013 Act.
I was very delighted to hear from Mr Meena that studies
show that the Act has done very well. If that is so, all
I would wish that those who are responsible for the
implementation of the Act be more sensitive towards the
affected people—the landowners, affected families and
also towards the needs of the people or entities which
require land for purpose of development. There has to
be a proper balancing of both the rights undoubtedly,
there are some issues which need to be sorted in the
area of implementation. My learned friend, Mr Mahesh
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Kumar has been quite candid to accept that the spirit
of the Act is very good but the problems are related
to implementation. He has something to say about
bureaucracy but I don’t entirely agree with this, we
have good officers, not too good officers, bad officers.
But, yes, we can create authority which can monitor the
implementation. If implemented in the right spirit, it will
not stand in the way of development of the country and
the progress of the people. I am indeed honoured to be
present here. Thank you once again.
H S Meena: Thank you very much Shrivastavji. , Now, you
all must be very confused because two panellists spoke
in support of the Act, one was slightly neutral and one
is entirely against it because of the time constraints.
I have forgotten to explain that I had an occasion to
present this Act in front of the Asian Development Bank
(ADB) at Manila where 63 of 190 countries were present
and, similarly, in the World Bank at Washington. It is on
record that this document has been classified as the best
document in the world, as far as livelihood and compliance
to R&R obligations are concerned. We do not comply with
one provision namely, if the person is residing illegally on
a government land then, as per the provision of this Act,
he is not entitled to any type of compensation but, as per
World Bank and ADB, he should also be given some sort
of support for livelihood. Due to the economic conditions
of our country, we are not allowing that, otherwise we are
00% compliant with the World Bank and the ADB norms.
We are criticising the document but Vietnam and other
countries are copying it. Maheshji and Shrivastavji have
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very correctly explained the provisions of the Act and I
agree that the issue is of implementation. The problem is
that we are not ready to build the capacity of the officers
who are really responsible for the implementation of
this Act. True, there are certain anomalies in the Act.
But if you follow all the provisions and have capacities,
especially the capacities of SIA team, SIA experts, SIA
persons, and SIA institutions, I think it is very simple, if you
conduct SIA successfully and the report is accepted by
the government, then the subsequent process becomes
very simple. I can give you an example; the present chief
minister of Bihar, Nitishji was the Railway Minister in the
GoI. He had a dream project, the Navi Nagar Super Thermal
Power project, a joint venture between the National
Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) and the Government
of Bihar, which was completely stuck. Land was acquired
using the provisions of the old Act. The farmers were
not ready to accept the compensation, leading to firing
and 19 persons were injured, 2 persons died, and 20–25
cases were lodged against the farmers and the officers.
In spite of the acquisition of land, the project couldn’t
start. I joined in 2011as the Principal Secretary of the
Revenue Department, so I was given the mandate to
initiate the project. The only reason why it was stuck was
that they had not conducted the SIA, nobody had gone
to the site. I was the first to visit the 8–9 villages where
this project was located in which about 2000 families
were to be displaced. They said that even the Patwari had
not come to the site. When the Collector and I consulted
the villagers, within five days the project was started.
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Proceedings
55
KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY
SHRI G B PATTNAIK,
FORMER CHIEF JUSTICE OF INDIA
I retired from the Supreme Court, way back in 2002 and ever
since then, I had no touch with the Acquisition Act of 1894 nor
am I in touch with the new enactment on which the seminar
intends to deliberate. Therefore, I am not very sure about my
own competence to express my views on the Act which is an
ex-propriatory legislation taking away the Right to Property
and how it has tried to address grievances generated by the
old Act. The subject of the conference is the five year journey
and way forward. One would ordinarily expect to discuss
about the commencement of the Act, how it has taken shape
during the last 5 years, the loopholes in the Act, who are the
participants or stakeholders, how the courts have dealt with
different provisions of the Act and the possible remedies, to
be suggested by this august gathering.
Now, if you see the R&R Policy 2007, SIA provisions were
included in the same form as it is in the new Act. The only
thing is that it was a policy, so it was not binding on the
Central and state governments.
Joyita Ghose: We have been able to hear several different
viewpoints, each of which was compelling in its own way.
I would like to thank all the speakers for taking time out
of their schedule to join us today. Unfortunately we don’t
have time for questions right now, we are running a little
behind schedule, but in the next sessions, we would like
to hear from the audience as well. I would like to request
Dr Das to give a token of our appreciation to all the
speakers for taking time out to join us today.
Day 1, Session 2 ‘Land Procurement Models:
What Have We Learnt’
Joyita Ghose: Welcome back to the second session.
I would like to welcome Shri G B Pattnaik, who is the
former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India. Sir
was the 32nd Chief Justice of India. I would now request
sir to deliver the keynote address and I also invite all the
panellists to join us on the dais.
But I would like to briefly discuss the history of the land
acquisition legislation in this country, the enactment of
1894, the enactment of 2013 and how courts have dealt
with some provisions of the new enactment, what are the
pending legislative changes and the possible remedies
that can be made available. Now, land or property is a
subject which is very dear to every individual, not only
in this country but in the entire world. Therefore, our
common habit is try to grab even one inch of land from
somebody else, and not to part with the land we have,
even though the land is not giving any income. There is
an emotional attachment with property in every
individual that can’t be changed by legislation. But, land
is needed by the authorities for executing several
beneficial projects, whether hospital or road and so
on and so forth. If you look back at the history of this
country, in earlier days, probably there was enough land,
people were less and, therefore, it was not difficult to
acquire a piece of land. But there was no legislation until
1870, and, in those days, even if land was being acquired,
some amount of money was paid as compensation, to be
decided by an arbitrator and there was no appeal against
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that. There was no guidance even for the arbitrator to
decide the criteria for fixing the compensation. The first
enactment during the British regime was in 1870. But that
Act also was not very efficacious, it didn’t have guidelines
as to how the process of acquisitions would continue,
what would be the norm for determining the amount
of compensation to be paid to the landholder. Therefore,
after a lot of deliberation among different provincial
governments, the then Central Government enacted
the LA Act of 1894. The Act did provide an elaborate
procedure and, as far as acquisition is concerned, it
started with a notification under Section 4(1) and
culminated with the award of the Collector under
Section 11, to be challenged by way of a reference
under Section18 and a further appeal to the court.
There was an emergency provision by which the
appropriate government could dispense with the
provisions of Section 5(a) under which the landholder
was entitled to raise an objection to the acquisition. So,
the landholder had the right to file an objection under
Section 5(a), to give evidence before the Collector with
regard to compensation, to challenge the award by
making a reference to the court, which would be heard
by a District Judge, and against that, an appeal could
be preferred. Now, I was a government advocate for 12
years and, in that capacity, I have tried to defend the
government in LA matter but utterly failed. Failed for two
reasons, there was a racket in the acquisition, there would
be some lawyers who usually dealt with LA and they
would get advance information from the appropriate
section of the Collectorate that for this project, this is
the area identified and land is going to be acquired.
Before the public announcement of a project, they
used to get small sale deeds of one decimal or half a
decimal executed, during the relevant period, for a very
high price. After the acquisition process started, they
used that as evidence and, on that basis, courts granted
huge compensation as the courts were very liberal. A
land which would be, say, 5 km from the headquarters
of the state where the project was going to be set up,
was being compared with land in the interior part of
the state and compensation was paid accordingly. So,
therefore when I read the very title of the new Act, Right
to Fair Compensation, in my humble estimation, the
compensation which was being paid cannot be said to
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be unfair in any manner, rather, to me, it appeared that
the state exchequer was being depleted by making huge
compensation to the landholders. There were two areas,
one was LA and the other was arbitration where, I, as a
government counsel, had defended the government
and I used to say that these are two rackets where public
money is being spent.
Be that as it may, the said Act remained in force, from
1894 till 2013, when the present enactment came into
the Statute Book. Now, in 2010, the LA Amendment
Bill and the R&R Bill was introduced in Lok Sabha and
passed on 25th of February 2009. But, the Bill lapsed
with the dissolution of the 14th Lok Sabha. Thereafter,
steps were taken to have a unified legislation, dealing
with acquisition of land, providing for just and fair
compensation and making adequate provisions for R&R
for the affected persons and their families. The present
legislation emphasized the imperative need to recognize
R&R issues as intrinsic to the development process,
formulated with participation of affected persons and
families, and benefits, beyond monetary compensation,
are proposed to be provided to the families affected
by involuntary displacement. In fact, a broader effort
has been made to include, in the R&R framework, not
only those who directly lose, but all those who are
affected by such acquisition. Displacement often causes
problems and, as past experience show, several projects
for the benefit of the state could not go through merely
because the acquisition process could not be completed.
The present law applies when the government acquires
land for its own use, hold and control or with the ultimate
RFCTLARR Conference 2018
purpose to transfer it for the use of private companies for
stated public purpose or for the immediate and declared
use by private company for public purpose. R&R applies
when the private companies buy more than 100 acres
of land in the rural areas or more than 40 acres in urban
areas for a project. The main reason that appears to have
prompted the legislature to enact a new Act is the fact
that the old Act didn’t address the issue of R&R of the
affected persons and their families. And, the definition
of the expression ‘public purpose’ under the Act was
very wide and the legislature felt that the private lands
are being acquired under the old Act, because of wide
definition of public purpose as interpreted by the
Supreme Court. The Parliament thought to enact the law
dealing with all the aforesaid situations and it was felt that
the law should be enacted bearing in mind the national
R&R policy and making the process of acquisition more
transparent and participatory.
I don’t think that the old Acquisition Act lacked
transparency, certainly, it was not a participatory one.
If the provisions of the new Act are analysed, it would
appear that the said Act intends to ensure food security
and permits acquisition of multi-cropped irrigated
land, as a measure of last resort. An equivalent area of
wasteland will have to be developed, if multi-cropped
land is acquired. The Act also purports to ensure a
compensation package for the landowners, a scientific
method for calculation of the market value of the land,
which would be more beneficial to the landowner.
The provision for R&R package is undoubtedly a new
concept, and has been adapted mostly on humanitarian
consideration so that the landowners are not faced with
gross hardships. All care has been taken to make special
provisions for SCs and STs, with regard to their economic
condition and having regard to their special status under
the Constitution. Whether these beneficial provisions
under the new Act are being implemented in the true
spirit and right earnest? And how are the provisions of
the new Act able to achieve the objectives and reasons
of the Act? And, how are the provisions of the Act being
interpreted by courts of law? To ensure sustainable
growth in the economy of the country, what is necessary
is a balanced approach and no country can claim to be
developed merely by industrial growth, particularly, a
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country like India which is essentially an agricultural one.
For development in a country, the growth of agriculture
and food production is equally important with the growth
of industry and provision of necessary infrastructure.
The process of acquisition purports to provide the
necessary infrastructure growth as well as to provide the
industrial growth. So far as the constitutional scheme is
concerned, all of you know that when the Constitution
came into force in 1950, Article 19 (1)(f ), and Article
31 conferred the right to acquire, hold and dispose off
property to an individual. Article 19(1)(f ) was repealed by
the 44th Amendment in 1978 when Janata Government
came into power. The net effect of that amendment to
the Constitution was that the Right to Property ceased
to be a Fundamental Right and, therefore, no one could
move the Supreme Court, under Article 32, on the ground
of violation of his Right to Property. Instead, clause 1 of
Article 31, was incorporated in Article 300 A, which means
that if an individual property is taken away by executive
action, unsupported by or in excess of the authority
conferred by valid law, then he may seek appropriate
remedy from the High Court under Article 226.
If the State seeks to acquire the property of an individual,
it can do so by making a law and after payment of
some amount, by way of compensation for such
expropriation. A look at the Statement of Objects of the
45th Amendment Bill to the Constitution, would reveal
that the Right to Property, which gave rise to more than
one Amendment to the Constitution, ceases to be a
Fundamental Right and would, therefore, only be a legal
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right. For this purpose, amendments were made, both
through Articles 19 and 31, but the right of persons
holding land to receive compensation at the market
value is not affected in anyway. While property ceased to
be a Fundamental Right, it got recognition as a legal right.
And, therefore, no person, shall be deprived of property,
save in accordance with law as contained in Article 300A.
The 45th Amendment to the Constitution, brought about
a revolutionary change in the Right to Property and only
a vestige of Right to Property is now contained in Article
300A, which is outside of Part 3 of the Constitution. This
august body, consisting of several stakeholders, will
express their respective viewpoints pertaining to the
legislation in question and, if they find loopholes, they
should point out the same to the Parliament, even the
state legislature, to look at the same and come forward
with necessary amendments.
I find that the concept of having SIA study as incorporated
in Section 4 is, indeed, a laudable one, which enables the
elected bodies at the village or ward level to express
their views on the proposed acquisition. The Act also
provides for a public hearing in the affected area after
giving adequate publicity which makes the process
of acquisition a participatory one. The appropriate
government then takes the final decision after examining
the report of not only the Collector but also the report
of the expert group on the SIA study and then takes a
decision, to ensure minimum displacement of people
and minimum disturbance of infrastructure and ecology.
The only exemption from social impact assessment is
when the land is proposed to be acquired under the
urgency provision, under Section 40. Though the Act
doesn’t indicate in which case the government can take
resort to the urgency clause but it is apparent from subSection 2 as well as other provisions of the Act that the
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urgency in question must be such that it cannot brook
the delay of going through normal processes. These
contingencies are defence of the country, national
security or natural calamities. Section 40(2) indicates that
if the urgency provision is resorted to, then the approval
of the Parliament is necessary.
The second redeeming feature of the Act is the
requirement of obtaining consent when the land is being
acquired for PPP project where, of course, the ownership
continues to rest with the Government and for private
companies for public purpose, as defined in Sub-Section
1 of Section 2. This provision has made it feasible to
acquire land easier than what it was under the old Act
of 1894 where several large-scale projects didn’t come
through because of the objection of the local public on
certain trivial grounds. You must have read in the recent
past how the acquisition of land for the new airport in
Uttar Pradesh has been possible with the consent of
the landowners, even the state government has already
allocated funds for the same. From my own experience
I can say that big projects have been stalled on this
score. In the state of Odisha, where I come from, way
back in 1960s, a defence project of Rs 7000 crores in the
district of Balasore was stalled because certain persons
were cultivating betel leaf there. A project at Gopalpur,
which was supposed to have been taken up by Tatas,
was stalled because land could not be acquired there.
The great project of POSCO for steel plant could not go
through after years of public objections. Not only that, I
have recently come across a matter where under the PPP
partnership programme, a stretch of national highway
was being constructed in Bihar, from Ara to Gaya, one
of the conditions was that Bihar Government must give
the Right of Way to the contractor over 100% of the land.
They failed to do so and the agreement provided that the
contract would be rescinded on that score. The contractor
did rescind that contract and has claimed more than
Rs 5000 crores, which is pending in an arbitration dispute.
You can imagine the national loss which the country was
facing on that score.
Coming to the question of compensation for the land
acquired, the new enactment awards money for the loss
of land, but also, any other loss which may arise due to
acquisition and process incidental there too. The Act
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provides for a solatium of 100% of the compensation,
and interest on that, from the date of notification till the
date of actual payment, that apart, the Statute itself has
fixed four times of the market value in rural areas and
two times of the market value in the urban areas, which
would ensure substantial life sustenance resources to
the affected families who would be displaced by the
acquisitions. As I have already stated, the concept of
R&R is entirely a new approach, the report in such cases
would include the impact of acquisition on the life and
livelihood of the affected persons, the community and
the social life, infrastructure and public utilities. The Act
provides that possession can be taken only after the
payment of compensation and notification of R&R award.
These, to my mind, are some of the key provisions of the
new enactment and undoubtedly, the new enactment is
a much debated, well thought, well considered, beneficial
legislation not only for the landholders but also for
the other stakeholders, namely, the industry and the
companies, it has tried to strike a balance.
When we look at the journey from 2014 to 2018, the
last five years, we see that the Act came into force on
1.1.2014. The new Government that came in May 2014
immediately felt the need for amending some key
provisions because, it thought, they stood in the way of
speedy acquisition of land for industry and infrastructure.
An ordinance was promulgated to do away with the
requirement of consent and social impact assessment for
industrial corridor, defence projects, rural infrastructure
and also diluted the provision regarding the return
of acquired land to the landholder, if it remained
unutilized beyond the stipulated period. The ordinance
was withdrawn in 2014, but an amendment Bill was
introduced which was passed in the Lok Sabha, but could
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not be passed in Rajya Sabha and was referred to a Joint
Parliamentary Committee where it is still pending. As
far as the State Legislatures are concerned, some states
have amended some of the provisions of the Act. Broadly,
the state amendments relate to exemption from social
impact assessment study for certain category of projects,
exemption from consent requirement for projects in PPP
mode and payment of lump sum amount, instead of R&R
award, for certain category of projects, direct purchase
from landowner and speedy payment of compensation
amount, by exempting the requirement of enquiry for
certain projects. And the state governments are bringing
these amendments in the exercise of their rule making
power. However, I have my doubts. Though the subject of
acquisition is in the Concurrent List and state legislatures
are competent to enact a law so far as the rule-making
power is concerned, this is a delegated power, which they
derive under Section 109 of the Act which clearly says
that states can make Rules for the enforcement of the
provisions of the Act. Therefore, if any state, in exercise
of the Rule making power, makes a law or has made a
law, which is repugnant to, or contrary to the provisions
of the Act, that rule, in my view, will certainly not stand
the scrutiny of the courts in future. Of course, I am not
very sure because I have not examined the relevant
provisions, but, I saw some provisions in the Rules of
some states, which are contrary to the provisions of the
Act and, certainly, no state in their Rule-making power
can make such Rules which go beyond the provisions
of the Act. Let me now tell you how the Supreme Court
- the highest court of the country, has interpreted
some provisions of the Act and the dilemma in which
it has put others. There is a provision in the new Act
which says that, even though the acquisition process
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started under the old Act, in some contingency, the
acquisition must be held to have lapsed due to certain
events. These are—the award for compensation has
not been made till the time of enactment of the new
Act or, if payment of compensation has not been made
or the possession of land has not been taken, though
the award was made in the preceeding 5 years from
the date of the commencement of the new Act. Shortly
after the enactment of the Act, the Supreme Court had
to adjudicate on the interpretation of Section 24(2) with
respect to the payment of compensation in the case of
Pune Municipal Corporation. The court decided that the
expression, ‘compensation has been paid’ would mean
that the compensation was first offered to the landholder
and, on his refusal, it was deposited in court, court means
the reference court, which an aggrieved person had
approached, against an award under the old Act. This
was a judgment of a three-judge Bench. Unfortunately,
in the case of Indore Development Authority, another
three-judge Bench took a contrary decision and held that
‘compensation has been paid’ means that it was offered
to the landowner but rejected by him, it is not necessary
that it must have been deposited in the Court. They held
the earlier judgment to be per-incuriam and, then, took a
contrary view. With the utmost humility I command, there
is no precedence and it is highly unethical on the part of
another three-judge Bench to dub a previous judgment
as per-incuriam, it means the judges who decided the
case didn’t know the law, it almost amounts to that. There
is a Rule of Precedence which says, if you don’t agree
with the view of an earlier Bench of the same strength
then you should refer the matter to a larger Bench or
request the matter for being considered by a larger
bench. It created havoc because, in several states, cases
were disposed off by following the Indore Development
Authority Case. Subsequently, the Chief Justice passed an
order that this issue of land acquisition will be considered
by a Constitution Bench. But, I think, the Bench has not
been constituted so far, and the matter is still pending.
Therefore, one decision here and there can cause havoc
so far as the vital right of the landholder or any other
stakeholder to the property is concerned. I must express
that I am less competent than all of you, who, I believe, are
different stakeholders and must have gone through the
Act. In your deliberations you would be able to put your
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60
ideas, criticisms, and comments not only on the Act itself
but you can suggest what possible amendments can
take place, to ameliorate the grievances of all concerned
so that the legislation pertaining to land acquisition will
go through smoothly without any hassles or hurdles.
I thank the organizers for giving an opportunity to
several stakeholders to offer their respective views and
the compilation of these views would obviously give a
handle to the legislature to consider and decide what
further steps can be taken in this regard. Thank you very
much for giving me this opportunity.
Joyita Ghose: Thank you very much, sir, for giving us
such a comprehensive overview of the broader set of
issues, that surround LA right from 1894 to 2013, then
the ordinances that came in, and the more recent judicial
interpretation of these laws. I would like to request
Dr Das to please give a small token of our appreciation, to
sir for his keynote address.
The first discussant for today is Mr Subhash Chandra,
Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests in the
Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. I
request sir to please share his thoughts with us.
MR SUBHASH CHANDRA,
Additional Principal Chief Conservator of
Forests, MoEFCC
The Honourable Justice has made a very good
presentation on the Act and its five year journey. We were
enlightened, what are the issues and how complicated
and complex the procedure of LA is and, in fact, still we
all are learning from this. My presentation or talk will be
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limited to the issues related to acquisition or diversion
of forestland. As you all will be aware that in our
country almost 99% of forest land is under government
ownership. And being government land it cannot be
acquired, it is basically diverted for non-forestry purpose.
And you may also be aware that India aspires for 1/3rd
of the land area to be under forest cover, which is 33% as
per the National Forest Policy. We have around 24% of the
area under forest and tree cover; 21% under forest cover
and approximately 3% under tree cover. When the tree
cover is less than 1 hectare, it is not, as per the definition,
forest cover. There is ‘recorded forest’ as per the notified
forest area, and ‘forest cover’ as per the assessment of
Forest Survey of India. The bi-annual State of Forest Report
gives the state of forests in three major categories—
dense forest, medium forest cover and open forest cover,
depending on the density of the vegetation.
In fact, forests, we all know, are the harbingers of the
biodiversity and they play a very important role in the
sustenance of the large rural population. Most of these
Scheduled Tribes and rural population are dependent
on forests for various products and services. And, if the
forests disappear they will be very adversely affected.
Many livelihood opportunities of the Scheduled Tribes
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are interlinked with the forest. In fact, the Forest Rights
Act, 2006, was promulgated to recognize the rights of the
local inhabitants or tribals in various parts of the country.
The process is still ongoing, I don’t think that forest rights
have been settled so far, but they are very important for
the rural and Scheduled Tribes people. In our country, the
forest areas are also overlaid on the mineral rich area, iron
ore, bauxite, coal, etc., are falling in the heavily forested
and good forest cover area. So, the matter becomes
very complex, suppose the mineral is there, then you
have no option but to go for mining in national interest,
depending on the value and requirement of the mineral.
At the same time, you require forests. As we know that
all our major rivers are originating, traversing through
the forest which helps them in maintaining the water
balance and water flow. In 1980, the Forest Conservation
Act was promulgated, it is a very short Act, you can say
only three Sections are there, where the Central
Government has the power to grant permission for
diversion of forest or it gives the power to grant approval
to state government, where the forest area is required
to be diverted for non-forestry purpose. There are a
large number of Rules, I think, they may go up to 4050 pages, to address various situations for governing
the process of forest clearances. In fact, the process for
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forest clearances starts at the state government level.
The project proponent who is requiring forestland
for any development project or non-forestry purpose
has to apply to the state government, particularly,
the district level officer, either Deputy Conservator of
Forest or District Forest Officer. After the preliminary
investigations that include an inspection of the condition
of the forest area, if the state government is of the view
that diversion of forest is acceptable, then they send
the proposal to the Central Government for approval.
The Central Government examines the proposal, and
its regional office, it has ten regional offices in the
country, processes the proposal, inspects the area and
gives its recommendations—whether the proposal can
be accorded forest clearance or not. The powers have
been delegated. Suppose 40 hectares of area is to be
diverted, it can be approved by the regional officers and
if the area is more than that, then it comes to the Central
Government. The process takes a lot of time because
there are public consultations. After the Forest Rights
Act, the Ministry also stresses that the forest rights in the
forest area proposed to be diverted have to be settled
before the forest land is diverted. Apart from that, as
per the Forest Conservation Act, there is a requirement
of compensatory afforestation in an equivalent area of
non-forest land, or twice the diverted area in a degraded
forest land. There is a compensatory afforestation fund of
state governments in which deposit has to be made by
the project proponents.
Forests have many other environmental functions and,
at the direction of the Supreme Court, Net Present Value
was added, depending on the quality of forest cover. This
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also has to be deposited by the project proponent. After
the state government is satisfied that all the conditions
specified in the preliminary or in-principle approval test
by the MoEFCC have been met, the state government
sends the proposal to the Central Government again,
for giving final clearance to the project. But, after the
Forest Conservation Act, the diversion of forest land
has drastically reduced by almost 40 times. After the
enactment of The Right to Fair Compensation and
Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and
Resettlement Act, our concern is that the tribals and
local population living in the forest area should get
proper compensation. Because, their livelihood is
intricately inter-woven with the forest, so they neither
have adequate skills or immediate resources to fall back
on some other livelihood means. Therefore, the issue of
compensation to the tribals, particularly rural population,
that are dependent on forest has to be handled very
sensitively and compassionately. Otherwise, these are the
people who suffer the most from diversion of forest, and
particularly, the coming of new set of economic activity,
because they cannot cope with the new economic
environment. That is why industries, which are going for
diversion of forest cover, should carry out adequate social
impact assessment and try to have consensus and the
package, which can address the interests of the forestdependent people. The settlement of forest rights in such
areas needs high priority.
Apart from these, if the area required is located in a
wildlife sanctuary or near it, the approval of National
Board of Wildlife is required, which is very cumbersome
and difficult to obtain. At the same time, the country
needs to go for rapid economic development if we have
to address the issues of poverty and employment, and
for integrating with the global economy and developed
world. So, this also poses a very difficult situation for
the government and industry. The industry faces the
challenges of competitiveness with the global industry
due to high land acquisition costs, compared with other
developing countries of South-East Asia and even our
neighbours, such as Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand,
Vietnam, etc. It is very difficult to compete with them in
the products so there is no commensurate increase in
our exports. It is a very complex process, we have to work
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together with the society at various levels and try to find
a solution.
Forest clearances for infrastructure projects take a lot
of time. We have to strike a balance because delay of
such projects has enormous cost to the economy, the
government and the people as well. So, it is imperative
to try and minimize conflicts in the areas where we are
trying to acquire land or diverting forest area.
Joyita Ghose: Thank you, sir, for sharing your thoughts
on the process of using forest lands for non-forest
purposes and the manner in which other laws, such as
the Forest Conservation Act of 1980 or the Forest Rights
of 2006, or the more recent, Compensatory Afforestation
Act, play a role in the process of procuring land. We will
now request the second speaker Mr Vinay Kumar Singh,
who is the Executive Director from National Highways
and Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd, to
please share his thoughts.
VINAY KUMAR SINGH,
Executive Director, NHIDCL
My organization, National Highways and Infrastructure
Development Corporation (NHIDCL) was set up in 2014,
it is a very young organization. It has been given the
task of constructing national highways in the North
Eastern and Himalayan states. The areas in which we
work are most treacherous and inhospitable terrains
where development was very meagre before we arrived.
Though development was underway but the pace was
very slow, and the people welcomed us there, because
they want development. They are ready to offer anything,
if you ask for their land, their houses, they are ready to
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break their houses, they are ready to give their land
willingly. So, this compensation is a very relative term,
those who are in need they desire development while
those who are already developed, need compensation.
But we have to follow the Rule, fair compensation is
required, and the people who are disturbed, have to be
rehabilitated and resettled. The RFCTLARR Act, 2013,
has been a boon for national highway (NH) projects.
Earlier, when we approached people for land, it was very
difficult to get it because the compensation paid to
them was very small.With the introduction of this Act, now
the landowners are willingly coming forward, and they
say, “please, take my land”. They are getting two benefits,
first, they are getting really very good compensation and,
secondly, their land value increases, because once the
national highway is there, they have got lot many things
to do. In short, we can say that development starts with
access of NH in that area. When a national highway is
conceptualized, the first process is to prepare a Detailed
Project Report in which all the provisions made in the
RFCTLARR Act, 2013 are generally incorporated like SIA.
Being a national highway, the first priority is how much
traffic is plying on that road, we go for the traffic census
and using a scientific method, we project the future
intensity of the traffic. Accordingly, we prepare our plan,
whether, we require single lane road or double lane
road, or four lane road, or six lane road. Accordingly, our
land requirement is assessed. Once the District Plan is
prepared, it is given to the revenue or local authorities
indicating the requirement for land for the project. Then,
as per the procedure, a competent authority for LA, called
CALA is appointed under Section 3(a). He goes to the
affected villages and affected areas and identifies the
portion of land that will come within the project area.
The public is informed about the areas through which
the NH is passing, and if anybody has any objections, they
may come forward for discussion. A public consultation
is organized as a part of The RFCTLARR Act. During the
consultation, the objections are noted and the revenue
authorities try to mitigate their problems. Thereafter,
notification is issued under Section 3A of The NH Act,
1965, declaring the Government’s intention to acquire
the land, giving the exact measurement and the
particular khasra number or khata number of land
or portion of land that is covered by the project area.
RFCTLARR Conference 2018
Earlier, people would object to a road passing through
their land, but nowadays, even though we require only one
kanal (unit of land measurement) of land, they are ready
to part with the whole piece of the land because they are
getting good compensation. So, after the assessment of
land to be acquired for road development, a notification
is published under Section 3D for the acquisition of land.
Within one year of its publication, compensation has to
be paid to the landowners. Accordingly, we deposit the
money with the CALA and they disburse it. If anybody
has any objection, an arbitrator is appointed and that
arbitrator settles the issue. Generally, the payments are
made after the judgement. If, even after the arbitration,
the dispute is not resolved, the case goes to the court and
as per the court’s decision, compensation is paid.
When we build roads that are not national highways, we
follow the local Rules; each and every state has got their
own Rules for the state highways and other roads. Mostly,
the state Rules are in consonance with The RFCTLARR
Act. Deliberations are held with state governments
and, according to their recommendations, we pay
compensation. In Nagaland or in Arunachal Pradesh,
nobody owns land, it is all community land, so to whom
the compensation is to be paid? It is a very big question.
But, people are using that land for their livelihood, they are
cultivating the land, they have their shops and there are
settlements. So, there is a problem but we are proceeding
in consultation with the local Government and the Central
Government. In Nagaland, the Government is bearing the
cost of construction of national highways, and likewise, in
Arunachal Pradesh. Now they have become wise and they
have started allocating the land to communities and the
communities are sub-dividing the lands to the owners
who are claiming that they should get compensation, as
per The National Highways Act. In case of projects funded
by ADB or the World Bank we carry out Rehabilitation
and Resettlement also, though, The NH Act does not
provide for it.
This was, in short, what we follow for the development
of national highways. I can say that we are facing very
little problem, unless and until, as Shri Shrivastava, Senior
Advocate, Supreme Court said, land mafia purchase the
land and then go for litigation. Litigation takes place
because of their greed, otherwise, in NH sector, land
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acquisition has become a bit easier and life is simpler
now. This is what I wanted to share.
Joyita Ghose: Thank you very much, sir, for sharing your
experience from NHIDCL, of acquiring land for highways
which are linear projects and the challenges of working
in remote and hilly regions and also the need to strike a
balance between compensation and development.
I would now request the third speaker for today,
Dr D V Giri, who is the Secretary-General of the Indian
Wind Turbine Manufacturers’ Association to please share
his thoughts.
DR D V GIRI,
Secretary General, Indian Wind Turbines
Manufactures’ Association
I will be talking about the land and renewable energy
projects. However, it will be confined to wind because
I have no knowledge of solar. Though we work with
solar, on wind–solar projects but I will restrict myself to
wind. Having heard the Chairman and the two eminent
speakers, I think I learnt more than what I am going to
share with you, but I will leave a few thoughts. Dr Das
has requested me to talk about the models of land
procurement for renewable energy projects but I will
give you a quick background.
Land for wind energy is perhaps the most critical. It forms,
maybe, about 3%–5% of the entire project cost but land
will decide how much energy can be harnessed. The three
factors that go into any development of the wind project
are, one, the land which will determine the plant load
factor; second, of course, the capacity of the project and,
RFCTLARR Conference 2018
third, the interest to draw up your viability. I’ll just digress
for a minute. The Government of India is now looking at
renewable energy as the main source of energy and to
move away from fossil fuels. It means that by 2030 and
beyond, we would have more renewable energy projects
and this has been demonstrated elsewhere in the world.
If land is a critical mass for wind energy projects, I wonder
whether land should be made a national resource. At
present it is a Concurrent Subject and it is with the states.
Sir was saying that when it comes to an important
project, whether it is fair compensation or not. Fair
compensation will be paid but, I think and, this is just a
utopian thought, and we need to look at land as a very,
very important national resource. The beautiful thing
about wind energy projects is that land is procured to
the minimum level of requirement which means that
you can have a turbine which is either on private land
purchased outright as in Tamil Nadu or on revenue
land leased out by state governments or by the Forest
Department. Let us take the case of private lands. When
you purchase private lands on foot print basis, if you get
about 10 acre parcel of land, we would require about an
acre and a half or two acres to put up a 1 MW project or
2 MW project, the balance land of 7 acres can be used
for agriculture, which means that agriculture can co-exist
with wind. If you take a typical case of Tamil Nadu where
it is all private land, believe me, ladies and gentlemen, the
price which the industry pays to the farmer is more than
the commercial value of land which means that money
is going to be put in their bank. These lands are primarily
wastelands or dry lands, where the returns are very poor,
we don’t touch lands which are fed by canals or by dams.
So, the money he would put in fixed deposit would be
much higher from granting the Right of Way compared
to what he would get from his agriculture produce.
Dr Das has asked me to talk about the leasing models
which we have on the leasing of land. Let’s take the
forest lands. I am happy Subhash Chandra sahab is
here with us today. I am sorry to say, sir, it is very, very
cumbersome, you could probably take about 24-30
months to get land. I hope Sir will correct me but it is
very very difficult to procure forest land. Having got
the land, let us say, land cost in any wind project, if it is
x for private land, or point five x for lease lands, for forest
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land it is more than 2.25 x. This is primarily because
you have to pay lease rental, you have to worry about
compensatory land, you have to pay compensatory
charges, compensation for medicinal plants and, on top
of that, we have to pay for NPV charges. This fact has to
be highlighted. I am sure Subhash Chandra sir, in our
later meetings, will help us and advise us on how to go
about it.
In my view, wind energy projects in the forest areas are
being likened with mining projects. In mining areas
where you take the forestland, you are mining something
out, be it bauxite, or any other mineral. Here we dig the
forestland, make our foundations for our turbine and we
fill it back, we do not take anything from the forest.The NPV
charges are as much as Rs 10–15 lakhs. We are just adding
to the cost of the projects when the Government wants
to push tariffs down. They say that we need to have wind
projects and wind energy and renewable energy projects
as an affordable, round-the-clock power. If you are going
to push up the costs and if you are going to confuse wind
projects with mining projects, this has to be taken care
of. As Subhash Chandraji has said forest lands covering
sanctuaries or, after Madhav Gadgil’s reports on Western
Ghats, we don’t go anywhere near those areas. Now, when
you come to revenue wastelands, we have no problem
either with the forest or with the state governments in
fixing the rental charges. It is a beautiful, transparent
process, and we are very happy with that, and I think we
can get land from the Collectorate within six months, I
think that’s fantastic. The problem is that when we are
given the revenue land, we find a lot of encroachment has
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already taken place. Due to encroachment we again run
into the Right of Way problem which delays the project,
escalates the cost, bankers get worried, liquidated
damages come on the original equipment manufacturers
(OEMs) and suppliers like us who supply the wind energy
equipments, so no stakeholder is happy. Now even for
laying the transmission lines, I am told there is something
called The Telegraphic Act which specifies where you
can put your lines. Believe me, it is without exaggeration,
some of the projects that I know of in Tamil Nadu, when
I was the Chief Executive of a Danish Company, it’s a
vulgar unbelievable one crore of rupees per pole. It
would be very, very unfair, to ask for crores of rupees for
compensation. We are talking about fair compensation.
I think something definitely needs to be done, because
the transmission lines that are once laid and electrified,
become a national property, I don’t own the poles, I don’t
own the lines. So, I guess, something needs to be done
on that. Now, let us come to private lands. In private land,
it’s just purchase of land, whether it is in Maharashtra
or Tamil Nadu, whether you call it Patta in Tamil Nadu
or Satbara in Maharashtra. The problem is, whether dry
lands or wastelands are considered as agriculture lands,
when you convert an agriculture land to non-agriculture
use you have to get a land use conversion certificate. And,
believe me, getting it is difficult. Land is given to you but
the land use change from agriculture to non-agriculture
is a herculean task. Fortunately, some of the states have
decided and have passed legislation, that if you apply for
conversion and if you don’t hear from them within two
months, it is deemed conversion. But in some cases they
insist that you need to have a piece of paper. Now, just
imagine what happens, like the Right of Way issue, when
you don’t get the approval for conversion, you cannot
mortgage that land, the investor cannot mortgage that
land to the bank. Your financial closure doesn’t happen.
When your financial closure doesn’t happen, the project
again gets delayed and then, of course, you have all the
problems, of the investor, the banks, everybody is crying.
I think we need to look at conversion of land in a very
big way.
So, to sum it up ladies and gentlemen, I say that as far
as revenue land is concerned, there needs to be an
arrangement, forget the compensation, forget anything
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else, but we need to sort out the ROW issue, they
are really hindering projects. As far as forestlands are
concerned, it’s expensive, time consuming and we need
to relook at the NPV charges. As far as private lands are
concerned, it is the conversion of land from agriculture
to non-agriculture. Talking about power and renewable
energy they say that the next world war is going to be
on water. Of all the fossil fuels or any renewable energy
project, the only energy source, which doesn’t use water,
is wind energy, please think about it. We buy land for just
the minimal use, where agriculture can co-exist, and we
don’t require a drop of water, other than the water that
is used for foundation. Rainwater cleans the blades. So,
ladies and gentlemen, I hope the learned audience and
the officers in power, who decide the future of renewable
energy projects, which are the ambitious projects of the
Government of India for now and for the future, to look
at energy, climate change and global warming will pay
heed. I thank you for your patience.
Joyita Ghose: Thank you very much sir, for sharing your
insights on the procurement of land for renewable
energy projects, and specifically, for wind energy projects
as well as the challenges of using different models of land
procurement—forest, revenue or private land, as well
as sharing some solutions to address these problems.
I would now request Dr Meena Vidhani, who is Deputy
Director, Planning, Delhi Development Authority, to
please share her thoughts with us.
RFCTLARR Conference 2018
DR MEENA VIDHANI,
Deputy Director, Delhi Development
Authority
I find this session very interesting since various thoughts
with respect to the LARR Act have been expressed.
The perspective that I would be talking about is from
the urban development context, insofar as we had
renewable energy and forest issues. I represent the
Delhi Development Authority (DDA). In a city like Delhi
where land is such a scarce resource that needs to be
optimally utilized, the challenges for city development
are further aggravated. In that context, I would just like
to give a brief background of Delhi. Delhi is a city in
which development has been taking place through
the 1960s. And essentially, it was governed by the Land
Acquisition, Development and Disposal Policy of 1961.
This was the basis of development and the Master Plans
that are prepared by the DDA. But over the five decades
of planning and development in the city, we have
experienced a number of difficulties. For the planned
targets of city development, acquisition could not take
place at the pace at which it was required to move. So,
this led to a lot of issues. One issue was that acquisition
didn’t take place and even if acquisition was done, the
development couldn’t keep pace with the acquisition.
So, we had a lot of land that was acquired but couldn’t
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actually be used for development. People encroached on
that land and we had unauthorized colonies and slums,
which came through the 1970s. Almost 50% of Delhi’s
population resides in these kinds of informal settlements,
which clearly indicated that the acquisition model and
the development model which was adopted by DDA
has not actually kept pace with the urbanization needs
of the city. The urban development of Delhi is governed
by the Master Plan. The 2021 Master Plan came in 2007
with the idea that we should have alternate options for
development, not just in terms of assembly, but also in
development of infrastructure by the involvement of
the private sector. By 2021, the projected population of
Delhi will be 23 million, at present the population is 19
million. So we have a lot of challenges for development.
With this in mind, we came up with the Land Pooling
Policy in 2013, which kind of provides an alternative to
the cumbersome or resource-intensive provisions which
are there in our LARR Act. I do not know how many
out here know about this land policy which has been
notified by Delhi Government on 10 November, 2018.
The Regulations that will operationalize the land pooling
policy, has been notified yesterday. So, I don’t know how
many of you have a fair idea about what land pooling
is. Essentially, all fragmented land parcels are brought
together, they are planned in such a way that there is a
win-win situation not just for the landowners but also for
the agency which is taking up the development. Broadly,
with this concept in Delhi, each landowner is going
to contribute a uniform 40% land which the agency
requires for the planned development of the city in the
form of roads, green spaces, infrastructure, utilities, and
so on and so forth. For the planned development of the
city, the requirement is 40%, rest of the land is available to
the landowner to utilize as per the norms and guidelines
which are laid down in the Pooling Policy. This policy
doesn’t provide any bar, an owner of any size of land can
come forward and participate. So, what are the immediate
benefits for an agency, a development authority or a
planning authority. It offers an easy way out from the time
consuming and resource-intensive LARR Act provisions.
Also, with the direct private sector, we are looking at
speedier development of infrastructure, having the best
of technology and the smart city technology options.
Also, the trends of mismatch between housing supply
RFCTLARR Conference 2018
and demand will be addressed. With the coming of this
policy, significant contribution will be made to meet the
housing requirements.
There are key takeaways from this policy. From the
perspective of a landowner, the first advantage is that
he is not being paid a one-time compensation, he is
being made a partner in the development process,
meaning thereby, that he gets some land in return,
with appreciated land value which he was not getting,
if he received compensation under the LARR Act. The
benefits that would occur out of this kind of city level
development will be directly coming to the landowner.
So, he is a part of the entire process till the end, there is
no regret that he has got benefit up to a point only, and
thereafter, he was never a part of the process.
And I will provide some details. The Pooling Policy covers
five zones, called the planning zones, zone J, K1, L, N and
P2. The Policy is yet to be operationalized and a lot of prerequisites have to be put in place before we go forward.
But we have identified 95 villages in which this Policy is
going to be applicable, there are certain exclusions where
it would not be applicable. The details are available on
the DDA website and these could be referred.
Coming to the broad concept, the aim of this policy is
that we need planned and integrated development,
taking the landowners on board. With these kinds of
parameters, a sector-based approach has been adopted.
With this sector-based approach, any landowner of
any size can come forward, what DDA has done in this
Policy is to create a single window system, wherein any
landowner of any size can come forward and express his
willingness. To ensure that we have a minimum contiguity
of land for planned development, a 70% benchmark has
been fixed. So, once the landowners come together and
we have 70% of contiguous land in the identified sectors,
we can move forward. The details of the identified sector
will be available in the public domain, the landowners
would know what are the areas in which they can come
together and who are the other landowners with whom
they can interact.
Once DDA knows that the 70% benchmark has been
reached, through a public notice, it will inform all the
constituent landowners to come together. All the
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constituent land owners will jointly form a consortium and
apply to DDA. The Consortium would be a duly registered
Association with all the rights and duties. The role of the
consortium is very critical for the success of this policy.
This Consortium is essentially, what we would call a group
housing society, a resident welfare association (RWA). The
Consortium will be involved in all the issues, right from
the beginning—approvals that are to be taken from DDA,
payments of EDC charges that are to be done, the land that
is to be returned to each landowner, resolve disputes and
prepare the implementation plan. Thereafter, it applies
to DDA.
DDA will sit with the consortium and come out with the
sector plan, clearly showing the kind of utilities and green
spaces that will come up in the 40% land that we are
taking. These will be marked on the sector plan and the
plan will be approved. Detailed procedures have been
worked out, listing the steps that will be taken once the
plan is approved. At a certain stage, all the landowners
can go their separate way and develop their plot as per
the norms, which are being specified in the policy and
the Regulations.
This is the broad objective of this Policy and, as I said, it
not just ensures integrated development but also that
the housing requirements for Delhi are fulfilled. It is
estimated that if the participation in the land Pooling
Policy is good enough, housing units to the tune of
17 lakhs would be available in the National Capital
Territory (NCT) of Delhi.Taking cognizance of the fact that,
in Delhi, around 50% of the population lives in informal
settlement, we have provision in which we have given
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the landowners an additional Floor Area Ratio (FAR) for
housing for the Economically Weaker Section (EWS). The
EWS housing will essentially constitute 5 lakh of the 17
lakh housing units; this is a significant number which we
anticipate at the operationalization of the Policy. There
are a lot of details in terms of the development control
norms and the approval processes but the Policy is going
to be operated through a single window system. To
ensure transparency, speed in execution, all licenses and
approvals, everything would be through a single window
system.
One more thing which I would like to highlight is the
acquisition clause in the Pooling Policy. It states that if
there is stretch of land that is required for effectuating
the land Pooling Policy but the concerned landowner is
not coming forward, only then we would take the land
through land acquisition. The cost of such acquisition
has been, right now, placed on the Consortium itself. This
would, in effect, mean that a landowner has the option to
choose whether he wants the market forces to apply or
he wants to be a part of the Consortium. Otherwise the
cost has to be borne by all the landowners. So, there will
be lot of groundwork that would be required to be done
amongst the landowners, to actually come up with the
final plan in which all of them are ready to participate.
However, I would not get into the approval processes,
at this point. We are anticipating much safer sustainable
neighbourhood zones and the projected housing
availability would effectively help us in a big way to solve
the problem of housing that the city is facing right now. I
would like to close at that.
Interjected by Dr Das: Can you tell us what lessons does
it hold for other states?
I would say that we are at a stage where we are actually
experimenting and we have taken a lot of lessons from
other states. Right now, it is very difficult to say what are
the lessons, but we have many examples of land pooling.
Amravati is also working on land pooling. The Town
Planning Scheme of Gujarat for instance, is on a very
limited scale, we are not going to do pooling in phases,
not saying that we take 100 sectors and 200 sectors.
The kind of scale at which we are trying to implement
this Policy is much bigger. There are a lot of lessons we
ourselves might be learning when we actually get on to
the ground, if this comes through. I mean, we always had
this discussion even when GST started, there were lot of
difficulties. We do not know the next step or the problems
we will be facing, so we cannot predict anything. The
lessons to be learnt are for the concerned states, because
they are already having certain policies, how that is
getting implemented and, you know, what will be the
takeaways from policy is something I may not be able to
say. But, we will be learning and we are expecting that if
the participation is good, this could be a breakthrough
model as an alternative to the LARR Act. The kind of
issues, as I have been learning from other speakers, if we
have to keep addressing them, planned development
will never take place. The housing requirements and
facilities that people require—none of these will come
on the ground, if we go through extensive social impact
assessments and keep paying compensation. In the kind
of scenario Delhi faces, we may not be able to proceed
far. If pooling works out, it is definitely going to help us.
We will play the role of a facilitator/regulator to ensure
that planned development takes place. The participation
will be the key deciding factor. This policy has been under
preparation for a while, people are looking forward to it
but it is very difficult to say anything at this stage. But,
yes, from the urban development perspective, this
Policy could provide us with a lot of solutions, with lot
of improvements, which can take place over a period of
time. Right now it is a framework and, yes, we have to
take it forward. I would like to end with these thoughts.
Joyita Ghose: Thank you very much ma’am, for sharing
your insights on the challenges for procuring land for
urban development, specially, in the context of Delhi.
RFCTLARR Conference 2018
And, also for sharing details about DDA’s Land Pooling
Policy which is quite an innovative and an alternative
mechanism for procuring land, post the 2013 Act. We
will now take a short break for tea and come back for a
Question & Answer session.
Q&A Session
Joyita Ghose: If you have made it through the end of
the day, now you can share your thoughts and your own
experiences with land procurement. You can also ask the
panelists any questions that you may have.
Mr Sebastian K V, Don Bosco Art & Science College:
My concern is from the grassroot level. I have been a part
of the SIA team and we do come across issues. The first
question is, when the Act says, ‘partially affected or fully
affected,’ how to define partially affected and how to
define fully affected in case of a house ? The front three
rooms are lost, kitchen and the hall is left, whether it is
half-door crossed or half-door open, that is the serious
question. I was part of an SIA study for land acquisition
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for Sabri railway station from Angamari to Totukurai,
around 40 km. I am asked to do SIA, and halfway through,
it is rolled back. Last 20 years, the people have been put
into trouble. I came across a family where the lady had
been waiting for compensation for 17 years, she passed
away last February without receiving any compensation,
without any treatment. So, these are the harsh realities, I
have lot of queries, I would like to know the criteria for
deciding partially lost in case of a house. If a residence is
partially lost, can the family survive in the same house?
I also have another query regarding two cents of land,
I have altogether 2 cents and one and half cent is taken
and the remaining half-cent is left over, I cannot use it,
what shall I do? The government will not take it. When
these kinds of situation comes what to do, how to appease
the people and the real owners and pacify them? This is
my real concern I would just like to hear from somebody.
Mr Vinay Kumar Singh At least for the national highway
projects, it has been taken care of. Suppose, a person is
having only two rooms or three rooms in his house, one
kitchen and one bathroom, then the whole house is taken
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dedicated project like Delhi, Baroda, you will find a fully
developed corridor.
Mr Sebastian K V: The Ministry of Road Transport and
Highways (MoRTH) and other ministries of GoI can have
some sort of a special purpose vehicle or some sort of a
nodal agency where budget pooling can be conducted.
These have been done in many other countries also and
we are aware of that.
and he is compensated. If it is a big villa, having 13, 14
rooms, or six and seven rooms, the situation is assessed
by the local authorities as well as the National Highway
authorities. If the individual is not satisfied, then there is
the provision for arbitration, then the final verdict of the
arbitrator is obeyed by the National Highways Authority
of India. When a national highway passes through any
place, that individual can go anywhere for his livelihood,
because even a small shop can make his life. In India, if you
travel right from Kanyakumari to Jammu & Kashmir and
from Rajasthan to Kolkata, I feel that the entire habitation
is along the road. I hope that satisfies your question.
Mr Sebastian K V: I have got a couple of questions. We
are talking about the linear projects, national highways,
railways, pipelines, transmission lines, underground
lines, why don’t you have a policy to create a corridor
or a super expressway where all these utility lines for
the railways or highways and the corridor are available
with the government for leasing out or renting out to
the respective utilities agencies, so that the process of
infrastructure development, especially, of these linear
project can be expedited. Are we thinking along this line?
Mr Vinay Kumar Singh: Sir, the constraint is the budget.
India does not have sufficient budget to fund such a
corridor that each and everything is there. We plan for
the minimum requirements of the user. Suppose, traffic
density is too high at present which cannot be handled
by a certain specification of road, then we go for widening.
If widening is not possible there, then we go for elevated
structures. So, our planning is need based, we do not
have sufficient fund and that’s why we are planning in
a piecemeal manner. If sufficient fund is available for any
Mr Vinay Kumar Singh: Sir, the Ministry of Road
Transport and Highways has a Committee for budget
pooling but unfortunately, the fund availability is very
less. A lot of different work is still pending which is yet
to be initiated and then finalized. So, the planning is
budget-oriented and planning is done as per the budget
which is available with us.
Mr Sebastian K V: Else, we shall be living with this current
situation of the infrastructure projects. If something
can be done, it is the time to do it. Like energy, the
transmission, the gas pipelines, all have to come up in a
big way.
Mr Vinay Kumar Singh: Yes, it has to, there is
population pressure in India and our requirement is
increasing day by day. So, your suggestion is good, but
once again everything comes to the adequate availability
of fund which at present is the only constraint with us.
All problem lies with the fund. Two months back I saw
some notification by National Highways Authority of
India (NHAI) for this Delhi–Mumbai super expressway
having a corridor of 400 m width. If I am not wrong, this
14 lane expressway you are building from Delhi–Mumbai
on 400 m width, you can straightaway give some of the
portions to other utilities holders for laying those utility
linear lines.
Mr Ravi Kumar: Is there any proposal for this?
Mr Vinay Kumar Singh: Yes, the proposal is there, that
project is itself a wholesome project. It has incorporated
the maximum possible utilities, all along this project, like
pipelines, sewer lines, parking plazas, road side amenities.
You will find all these things in this project, if you go
through that DPR, it is well made.
Ms Naphisha Kharkhongkor: I am from the state SIA
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patta that you are talking, it is being dealt by the state
administration. The present Government is formulating
some methodologies to deal with this. Generally, we are
not aware how they are dealing with it, it is the problem
of the state government, national highway or MoRTH
cannot do much in this.
unit of Meghalaya, this question is directed towards
Mr Singh as we have a couple of projects with you,
especially Jaiconoor. I have one question and one
observation of the SIA. Coming from a state, which is a
Sixth Schedule state, we have a lot of land that needs
to be developed. However, what we have discussed the
whole day, it’s been very mechanical. Land is taken as a
resource. But, sometimes, land is more than a resource,
it is a way of identifying with yourself. With this project
we have come across some areas which are community
lands and we have sacred forests and graveyards. You can
relocate the grave, however, the community forest is an
issue. People have refused to move the sacred forests.
Without the movement of these forests I don’t see the
road going through. What do you propose to do about it?
I am also from a state where there has been no cadastral
survey and land records are spotty, at best. When we go
from one village to the next, we involve the village durbar
at every step, because we cannot identify the proper
landholders and the stakeholders, so, we have to depend
on these headmen. When we identify owners who don’t
have pattas, can you suggest, a way to expedite the
process of giving them the land pattas and thereby,
expediting the process of land acquisition?
Mr Vinay Kumar Singh: Ma’am, the situation in
Meghalaya is quite critical. The LA process is not
completed there because of the problem you have
just enumerated. I hope the issue of sacred forests can
be taken care with the elevated structures that we are
planning to make there. Very limited land will be taken
and once the structure is constructed, that land can be
used again for the sacred forest purpose. Regarding the
Mr Gaurav Kumar, Senior Manager, Environment in
NHPC: As you all know, hydropower projects are located
in remote locations in northern and north-eastern states.
It needs a substantial quantum of land because, the hydro
project involves large-scale submergence and the land is
also required for the project components. My question
is general, maybe, we can have a discussion on it. It is a
suggestion based on the experience of implementation
of the hydropower project. We feel that certain
procedures in The RFCTLARR Act involve duplicity. Like,
the SIA process, recently, as part of the environmental
clearance procedure, we had to undertake the socioeconomic survey for the preparation of the R&R plan.
Before the implementation of the RFCTLARR Act, before 1
January, 2014, also, we used to undertake this procedure
and, since the projects involved environmental clearance,
we have to undertake the SIA, socio-economic survey
and all that forms a part of the R&R plan. Now, with
the enactment of RFCTLARR Act, we have to conduct
the SIA as part of the LA process. Then, again for the
environment clearance we have to do SIA, because
these two processes are independent. Can we have a
mechanism where we can do the socio-economic survey,
like what we have been doing till date? Can there be a
mechanism where we have a common framework for the
social impact assessment, both for the LA as well as for
the environmental clearance process? The second issue
is the multiple public hearings. In the morning sessions,
Dr Mahesh Kumar from FICCI, he was also of the same
opinion. As we can see, in The RFCTLARR Act we have to
do six public disclosures and two public hearings, one at
the time of SIA and, once the SIA is done, then, at the time
of preparation of R&R plans. One public hearing is again
required as a part of the environment clearance process,
that is also mandatory and, then, the most cumbersome
process, the Forest Right Act. Suppose, a project involves
20 gram sabhas, or 30 gram sabhas, then 30 gram sabhas
meetings have to be arranged, they are not less than the
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public hearings. We have experienced many problems in
our projects where we are at loggerheads with the gram
sabha. They make demands and we have to take heed of
all those demands. So, can there be a common hearing,
a common public platform, where we can have all the
public hearing for LA, the Forest Rights, as well as the
environment clearance. Thank you.
Mr Subhash Chandra: This is a very good observation,
particularly, with respect to meeting the requirement
of the three Acts, this LA Act, Forest Rights Act and
Environment Protection Act. Till the time the processes of
the Acts or Rules are not merged, the processes have to
be done separately. The authorities are the same for LA
and Environment Protection Act, the Gram Sabha has to
take the decision. In the Forest Rights Act, the onus comes
on the project proponent, basically they have to educate
the people. Unfortunately, because of past experience,
people do not have much faith in the bureaucracy or
in the development agencies because of the lack of
development in their area. If there is lot of advocacy and
people’s engagement, they will see the benefits coming,
then the situation will change. It will take time, but the
people will themselves come forward and say, “please
do the process, we support the project”; due to past
experience of delays and poor implementation of various
projects, this has happened. These public hearings give
an opportunity to educate the people and inform them
that it is in their interest. The north-east region is lagging
behind, particularly with respect to infrastructure. I think it
will take time but gradually the process has to converge.
I think the project proponent should also approach the
concerned authorities to merge the processes. Each
ministry follows their own procedures, so it becomes
difficult to bring convergence but it will happen, maybe
it takes time. It is a very genuine observation, I feel at least
parts of these public hearings, these formats have to be
common, so that you can put the information collected,
or the consensus reached in certain parts, in another
format also.
Dr Abhijit Guha, Senior Fellow, ICSSR, at Institute for
Development Studies, Kolkata: Does NHAI have any
kind of research wing and research component to see
how their work is impacting the people. For instance,
forest has a very large research wing, forest department
always reassesses what it has done. Is it true that NHAI
has no research wing?
Mr Vinay Kumar Singh: Yes it has.
Dr Abhijit Guha: So what are the findings?
Mr Vinay Kumar Singh: In respect to which case are you
asking for the findings?
Person 4: No, the impact of these highways on the lives of
people. Do you have any kind of journals or publications?
I have been reading the journals which are being
published by the Indian Roads Congress and Central
Road Research Institute (CRRI). They are conducting
all types of studies, like EIA and SIA studies. The journal
carried a research finding about the use of local material
in the construction of road. Such type of research is being
carried out by CRRI.
Dr Abhijit Guha: I see, ok.
Mr A M Goswami, Coal India: My question is to Vinay
Kumar Singh. Actually my question pertains to the
implementation of LARR Act, probably you are acquiring
land under NH Act.
Mr Vinay Kumar Singh: NH, Act, 1956
Mr A M Goswami: After the enactment of RFCTLARR
Act, Removal of Difficulties Order, 2015, Schedule I, II,
III benefits are to be provided to the affected family.
I believe in National Highway you may have a large
number of primary livelihood losers and affected families
whether you are providing them some R&R benefits as
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per Schedule II of RFCTLARR Act, if not, how are you
escaping from punishment ?
Mr Vinay K Singh: First of all, who says that we are not
following the Rules. Second, the provision of LA mainly
deals with the landowner, but, in case somebody is not a
primary owner of that land but his livelihood is depends
on his settlement on that land, in that case the primary
owner is given a certain amount of compensation,
and the person who is dependent on the land is also
being compensated with proper resettlement and
rehabilitation. It is being done and it is well recorded. If
you want, you can ask for information under the Right to
Information.
Dr Nirmala Buch: I want to raise two points. One, this
question was raised about multiple assessments done by
different agencies, the SIAs really evolved from EIA, earlier
the EIA used to be conducted and it developed into SIA,
generally, the procedures and approaches will be similar.
The three Ministries should find a way of doing them
together, I think, people and institutions will appreciate
and it will all take less time as well.
Secondly, the success depends on who is doing the SIA,
if they understand the people, if they understand the
issues, it will be much better. We have found in Madhya
Pradesh that wherever SIA has been done well in that
area, it has helped a lot because they could develop
a rapport with the people. So, I think there should be
training programmes for those who would be involved in
SIA, because this will be a continuous project. If we have
people who are not pure consultants, but those having a
specialized understanding of people’s issues, understand
their approach, and also the departmental concern, it will
make a lot of difference as to how it is done.
Mr Vinay Kumar Singh : Ma’am, in case of NH projects,
all the DPR consultants have to mandatorily engage
NGOs related with the subject, like EIA preparation and
SIA assessment. I don’t doubt the capability of NGOs, so
whatever recommendation they give, we follow.
Dr Nirmala Buch: I just raised the issue because the
people are concerned. I don’t want to get into the NGOs,
etc., but there should be people who understand, for
instance, the Fifth Schedule areas, Sixth Schedule areas,
tribals and forest rights and all that, who understand
these issues, then when they go to the people, it will make
a lot of difference. We must develop a cadre of people,
whether in the department or outside, who should be
able to do SIA well, it will make a lot of difference to your
work. The work will be done faster, people will understand
and people will go with it, we have experienced this in
some of the cases.
Mr Vinay Kumar Singh: Ma’am, till now, such a problem
hasn’t come to me.
Dr Nirmala Buch: I am not only talking about you, I am
talking about everyone.
Mr Subhash Chandra: In fact, these clearance processes is
known to the regulatory agencies, so they themselves will
not be doing this, I think the regulatory authority will try to
distance itself from this process. TERI has been the pioneer
as they have started this training on SIA. I think that will
improve the capacity. Now, they have a small programme
for one week, it can be given to a larger audience and with
longer duration, more case studies will make a difference.
Mr Vinay Kumar Singh: We are giving training to the
local youth for their livelihood, since they don’t get an
opportunity to get trained themselves. We are giving
training on how to operate the machines, how to carry out
quarry operations, methodology for road construction,
etc. So, we are training them, it has been incorporated in
our DPR and it is a part of the programme. Approximately,
3000 youth have been trained in the last one year.
Today, every human being wants to earn money, wants
a livelihood, so we are teaching them, we are showing
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them the way and we are training them on how to get
the work, how to perform it and how to get the money.
Joyita Ghose: I think ma’am’s point on building capacity
for conducting SIA is very well taken. I think everyone
will agree that we do need to build capacity on how to
conduct SIAs.
Mr Vinay Kumar Singh: Yes
Mr Subhash Chandra: Universities can take these as a
Degree or Diploma programme.
Dr Sameer Rai, Social expert from the World Bank:
I have a question for Mr Chandra, and some clarification
too. Sir, I found in certain cases, recently, I was on a
mission to Himachal Pradesh, that claims under the FRA
have not yet been settled. This is delaying the LA process
for the solar park. Do you envisage any role of the Forest
Department in expediting the process of LA.
Mr Subhash Chandra : Actually, the Forest Department
is not in the picture. If you see the contents of the Forest
Rights Act, it is entirely with the Gram Sabha, they have
to recognize the rights, next, it goes to the sub-divisional
level committee and, then, to the district level committee.
I think the project proponent has to actively take up
this matter with the district level committee or Gram
Sabha, so that their case is put up for the recognition
of Forest Rights Act. The people are using their forest
rights for very long and unless somebody prevents them
from exercising their rights, only then the question of
determination rises, otherwise people take it for granted.
I fully agree with you that this process must be completed,
but there is no time limit for that, so unless there is some
spark or a cause, Gram Sabha has no interest in it.
Dr Samir Rai: Sir, Gram Sabha has no role to play right
now, because, for a plot of 794 hectares, there are
39 applications pending with the Kaza SDM for one
year. In the last one year, he has disposed two or three
applications. So, how to expedite the process because it
is the forest rights?
Subhash Chandra: The Forest Department is nowhere
involved.
Dr Samir Rai: Sir, the Forest Department claims ownership
over it.
Mr Subhash Chandra: Ownership is of the Government,
we are just the custodians.
Dr Samir Rai: Sir, you are part of the Government, it is a
Department of the Government.
Mr Subhash Chandra: Department doesn’t own the
forests, it is only protecting it for the people of the
country, so the people also have some ownership on it.
The SDM is not doing his job, it is really difficult to say
anything here.
Dr Samir Rai: Sir, LA for a project of the size of 400 MW is
stuck due to the incompetency of the SDM.
Mr Subhash Chandra: That’s why I cannot comment,
unfortunately, it might not be priority for him.
Dr Nirmala Buch: We all work in system, it is not anyone’s
responsibility individually but if you go to the area, get
people together and have a discussion and suggest
some work, people will come forward and say, “Okay we
will do it”. I work in the field, in various capacities from
top to bottom, it is important that people’s problems
are solved. We have to find ways of working at different
levels, we should address the problems. We are all doing
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Person 8: Good afternoon sir, I am working in National
Hydro Power Corporation. Most of our projects are in
Arunachal Pradesh, where USF land, that is, Unclassified
State Forest, is diverted under the Forest Conservation
Act, 1980. Land acquisition was going on under the
previous Act and, after the enactment of the new Act
it is still going on. But there is duplication. In USF land,
there is a one-time payment for land diversion under
the Forest Conservation Act. When we are acquiring land
under the New Act, we pay compensation to the affected
people and we also pay for the rights and privileges to
the affected person. This kind of duplication is not going
on anywhere in India.
our work, no doubt about that, we are doing excellent
work, but let us see where the problem is and solve it. You
cannot dictate to the SDM but you can get work done
from him, that’s what I am saying.
Mr Subhash Chandra: Ma’am, in the country more
than 2 million forest rights have been recognized.
So, if something is not happening somewhere, I think the
right way is to reach out to the public representatives
or the district administration to emphasize the need
for expediting it. Otherwise, it is in the administrative
jurisdiction, nobody from outside can say that you do this
job, because this is a quasi-judicial process.
Dr Samir Rai: Okay, thank you sir. Now coming back to
your question about the structures, as per the Act, and
when we add to it the World Bank Policies, if you acquire
75% or more of a structure, then the remaining 25% of
the structure has to be paid for by the LA authorities.
About the residual land, you are talking about, whether
it is defined as economically viable or unviable depends
on the type of land or the land use and location. Every
district has the minimum landholding size, you can get it
from the District Handbook and you can determine the
economically unviable part of land, as per the economic
category and, if it falls under the economically unviable
category then compensation has to be paid for it.
Vinay Kumar Singh: Sir, sorry to interrupt, I am speaking
on the lighter side. There is no land that is economically
unviable, adjacent to roads. After a road is built, people
don’t want to leave even an inch of land.
Mr Subhash Chandra: In fact, this peculiar situation is in
Arunachal Pradesh because of Unclassified State Forest
which constitutes over 60% of the forest cover and most
of this USF have community rights. Either, they have to
be settled under the Forest Rights Act or through LARR,
because the demarcation of USF area has not been done
and the community, I think, will not like the demarcation
to be completed. They will try to show ownership over
the USF but, as per the Government record, they are still
forests, so you have to get clearance under the Forest
Conservation Act. At the same time, for settling the rights
of the local community, you have to go through the
Forest Rights Act.
Person 8: There is no landownership there, they are
claiming on the community basis, hundred per cent you
can say, the Scheduled Tribe people are residing there
and their claims are already settled, yet they claim rights
under the LARR Act. The issue is not the settlement of
rights, the main query is how the duplication is going
on. If it is the USF land, then, it is a matter of diversion,
no land acquisition can take place. But here both the
things are happening, LA is being done by the state
Government and the forest diversion is going by the
Central Government. The Central Government has to
take action.
Mr Subhash Chandra: It would be difficult because
of historical reasons. The tribal people were living,
particularly, on the higher hills. In all the cities which you
visit, there are in the forest area, still the land has not
been diverted, it is forest area. Still, the people continue
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to own buildings and agricultural land, so you have to
compensate them and you can’t change the situation. I
don’t think there is any possibility of addressing this issue
under one Act.
together to find a solution. If you want to divert this land
then only you can approach the Central Government. It
is up to the state government to settle the issue but they
have to define their own priorities.
Mr P K Halder, BCCL: Hello Sir, my first question is to
Chandra sir. Sir, in Jharkhand the Company has 300 acre
of land. The District Forest official says it is forest land, DC
is saying it is revenue land, cultivator is saying it is my
land, as per CF record this is garib rath land, and we have
the patta, so it is our land. My next question is to Mr Singh.
Near our land, Rajganj–Ranchi NH is being constructed
for which very large amount of compensation is being
paid, compared to the compensation we pay. Therefore, it
is difficult for us to acquire land there.
Dr J Rath, NMDC: I was in Bastar and Bailadila for ten
years as General Manager, NMDC. In that area the issue
is forest land versus revenue land. In the township
area, the forest land was encroached before the Forest
Conservation Act came in 1980. At that time the revenue
department regularized it in the name of the persons. At
that time the Jabalpur High Court said that people have
the revenue right, if it is not the mining lease area. This
is naxal area, in many parts Government cannot enter,
when public hearing of Gram Sabha takes place, activists
come from outside, villagers cannot participate, even
when they have the voting rights.
Mr Vinay Kumar Singh: Sir, this is a political problem.
Because of politics, the compensation has become four
times. This is beyond our control, Parliament has control
over it. The provisions laid down by the Act can be
changed only by the Parliament.
Mr Subhash Chandra: As far as you are talking about
forest or revenue land, if the state government has earlier
submitted an affidavit to the Supreme Court, defining it
as forest area and, somewhere in the past, if this land was
notified as forest, then it is forest land.The DFO may not be
wrong, maybe, the revenue authority have not mutated
this land to the forest, but once it is notified, even under
a preliminary notification, then it is forest land. The state
government has to address it, the Central Government
doesn’t come into the picture unless it is forest land.
The forest officers and land revenue officers have to sit
The issue is now in Bastar, where we have a brand new
steel plant, Jagdalpur plant of 3 million tonne capacity,
we have invested Rs 20,000 crore. We acquired 1000
acres of land for the steel plant land in 2010-2011.
After 2013, when the second phase acquisition of land
began, Chattisgarh government said that you have to
follow the state R&R Policy, you have to give compulsory
employment within two years of acquisition of land.
The plant is ready to be commissioned, 1000 people
have been given employment, in addition, to the huge
compensation.
To solve this problem, we have invested about hundred
crores per year for the last 7–8 years in Jagdalpur and
Bailadila, out of the CSR fund. This way, we earned public
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India are diluting the Act so, if, land is being acquired
more easily through the 2013 Act, then why is it that
the states are moving in the opposite direction. Do they
want more contention or protest or is it that they want to
short sell the farmers or the landowners, and take away
the land at lower prices? I wish to hear from you on this.
Mr Vinay K Singh: Ma’am, frankly speaking, no comments.
support. However, Tata Steel, Essar Steel, and other
steel companies did not get an inch of land for their
steel plant. We got 2000 acres of land, now the state
government has decided to privatize the steel plant.
Tata Steel wants to buy the brand new steel plant. The
affected people got compensation and employment
but they are not qualified and have not completed
their schooling, they may lose their jobs if Tata takes
over the plant. So, now they want their land back, they
are saying that we don’t want a private company to
take our land. So, it is a political issue. My point is that
under the new Act, in the last five years we have some
very good and bad experience. My point is unless the
R&R Policy of the state government is delinked from
the R&R policy of GoI, you continue to face this problem
in states.
Dr Malvika Pal, Ambedkar University, Delhi: My
question is to Mr Vinay Kumar Singh. The ordinance
was passed on the ground that investment projects
are getting stalled, and therefore, the 2013 Act should
be changed. Now the matter is with the JPC. You told
us that there has been no problem in LA, particularly,
because of high compensation being paid. We know
from various studies, that in the past, compensation has
been the main source of litigation. Once that problem is
solved, the entire problem is solved. Why is it that the JPC
has not taken cognizance of the fact that such a large
organization as yours is not facing any problem with the
2013 Act? The fact that higher compensation has actually
solved a lot of issues and people are actually coming
forward to give their land and they want development.
So why is it that JPC is not taking cognizance of this fact,
this is one question? We also know that states across
Dr K Ratnabali, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law,
Delhi University: I have a question for Madam Meena
Vidhani. I just wanted to understand the importance
of Delhi Master Plan, 2021 and how it is binding on the
construction underway in Delhi? We have acquired
land for construction of Delhi Metro. After the land was
acquired by metro, there was surplus land which was
given by auction to some company, which is now planning
to build a residential complex. The Floor Area Ratio (FAR)
was changed to a residential colony. So, is the Master
Plan not binding? If it is, then how has DDA allowed the
change, that is the second question? The third question
is, what is the meaning of contiguous zone, because,
you said that, in case of land pooling, you have to have
at least seventy per cent contiguous zone. If I look at the
practical side, people don’t even know who is living next
door, so how can people come together and show their
willingness to give up 40% of their land, for a particular
project and how to deal with those kind of families who
are not ready to give up, and they may be occupying a
very central or significant place, from amongst those
people who are expressing their willingness to give up
their land?
RFCTLARR Conference 2018
Dr Meena Vidhani: I will go with the last question first,
because that is related to the Land Pooling Policy, which
I just spoke about. The first thing that we need to know
is that this is not going to be in the existing urban areas,
this Policy is not applicable in the existing urban areas,
meaning, thereby, the issue which you mentioned in your
first and second question, is often areas where already
development has taken place. But this is applicable in
green field areas, the zones that are specified are towards
the periphery of the city, these are essentially green field
areas, right now agricultural activity is being carried
out and, except for the village abadi area, most of the
land is available for development. So these five zones
are essentially for green field developments under the
Land Pooling Policy. We are identifying sectors, we will
be preparing plans and sectors will be delineated. This
information will be available in the public domain, it will
be advertised through public notice or on the website
for everybody to know my land falls in this sector, and I
can be a part of this pooling process. Secondly, it may be
difficult for me to talk to him or to five, ten people out
there if I consider these are all the stakeholders, so we
will be setting up a portal in which any landholder of
any size can express his willingness. That information will
be collected by DDA and mapped, we are in the process
of preparing the sector and zonal development map.
This information will be available to us, and we will start
making assessment of the parcels for which people are
coming forward. If we don’t get the seventy per cent land
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together or if we get fragmented land parcels, it will be
very difficult for us to plan infrastructure, return the land,
there a lot of issues. We will only take this forward once
we get seventy per cent land contiguity. We have given
them the option, they don’t really need to interact with
each other when expressing their willingness, they have
to come together later. When that 70% target has been
achieved, we come together to form a Consortium and
knowing that the rules of the game have to be till the end,
we move with the understanding that we have to work
together for the returns to come. The first and the second
issues are related. The Master Plan exists, I may not be able
to give you too many details about a specific case, which,
I think, is being examined by DDA. The development in
any existing area has to be in consonance with the Master
Plan, Zonal Development Plan and the layout plan of that
area. It is a statutory document, there can be no violation
in terms of the norms and all the controls are laid down.
If higher FAR has been given, right now, I cannot give you
any answer, unless I know the facts of the case.
Joyita Ghose: Thank you ma’am, and thank you to all
the speakers, who came today and who took time out
from their schedules and shared their very valuable
insights with us. I would like to thank the members of
the audience who raised some very useful questions. I
would like to request Dr. Das to hand over a token of our
appreciation to all the speakers for joining us today. Mr.
Chandra, Mr. Singh, Dr. Giri and Dr Vidhani.
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KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY
SHRI JAIRAM RAMESH,
MEMBER OF THE RAJYA SABHA
I am delighted that TERI is undertaking this five year
retrospective of a tongue twister of an Act, I wish the title was
shorter, most people forget the title of the Act—The Right
to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition,
Rehabilitation and Resettlement. First, I would like to place
this Act in its context. This Act, this legislation was one of the
seven rights-based legislation that was passed between 2004–
2014. That is why it is called the Right to Fair Compensation
and not just called Land Acquisition Act, 2013, which was
the easiest way of naming this law. I think, it is important to
understand why the Right to Fair Compensation came. If you
recall, in 2005 the first of the rights-based legislations was
passed, the Right to Information Act, now called the RTI.
Day 2, Session III ‘Social Impact Assessment:
From Policy to Practice’
Joyita Ghose: This session is on social impact assessment
(SIA), from policy to practice. The objective of this session
is to try and understand the challenges as well as the
benefits of conducting social impact assessments in
the land acquisition process and also, to understand the
implications of the gradual SIA policy reversal by state
governments. The keynote address for this session will
be delivered by Mr Jairam Ramesh. Sir is a member of
the Rajya Sabha and was instrumental in the formulation
and passage of the LA Act of 2013. He is often called
the architect of this landmark legislation. I now invite
Mr Ramesh to please come to the dais, sir’s address will
be followed by a panel discussion, moderated by Mr Arun
Kumar, Former Secretary, Ministry of Mines.
The panelists for this session will be Dr Debarata
Samanta, head of the state SIA Unit—Chandragupta
Institute of Management Patna. Dr D Suresh, Divisional
Commissioner Gurgaon, he will join us shortly, and
Mr V S Bhisht, Executive Vice President, PTC India Financial
Services Ltd. I now invite Mr Jairam Ramesh to please
deliver the keynote address.
That was followed by NREG Act, subsequently renamed
the MGNREG Act in 2005. In December 2006, the
Parliament enacted the Forest Rights Act, which was
basically oriented towards giving ownership rights to
land to tribals and traditional forest dwellers. In February
2009, the Right to Education Act was passed which was
basically a continuation of an earlier commitment that
had been made. So, this was the first generation of the
rights-based legislation. The second generation of rightsbased legislation started in 2013, actually in 2011. But,
it took two years to finalize, first was the National Food
Security Act; that was passed in 2013. Then, came the
Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in LA Act.
The seventh and the final legislation in this series was the
Right to Livelihood and Dignity for Manual Scavengers,
which were all passed in September–October, 2013. So,
this Act that we are discussing today not only replaced
the 1894 LA Act but was also a part of a series of rightsbased legislations in the decade of 2004 and 2014.
The second point that I would like to make is that there
was universal political consensus, there was almost
unanimity, across the political spectrum that the 1894
Act had outlived its utility and that a new law had to
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be passed. It took two years for this Law to be passed,
and there were extensive political consultations. It went
to the Standing Committee which was chaired by the
current speaker of the Lok Sabha with the representation
of all political parties. The Committee submitted its
report and 26 out of the 28 recommendations of the
Standing Committee were actually accepted. Then, when
it came for discussions in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya
Sabha, all political parties supported the legislation,
barring the AIADMK, which took the view that this was an
infringement of the right of states. But they didn’t oppose
the Bill. Constitutionally, land is a State subject but land
acquisition is a Concurrent subject and, therefore, they
took the view that LA really is a state subject. And, they
criticized the very concept of LA, Act but they didn’t
oppose the new Law. So, it was a law that was welcomed
across the political parties, examined by the Standing
Committee and for almost 10 months, two all-party
meetings were held, extensive political consultations
took place across the country and this law became a
reality.
Now, this law has five foundational pillars. The first is
prior-informed-consent, that you will not acquire land,
the word is acquire, not purchase or lease or pool. You will
not acquire the land without the consent of the landowners,
that was the first foundation principle. The second
foundation principle was the enhanced compensation,
the compensation was very niggardly under the old law
and gave a lot of discretion and arbitrariness to the State.
We needed to make compensation far more attractive
and more remunerative to landowners, and, therefore,
there was this four times increase in compensation in
rural areas, and a sliding scale, up to a maximum of 2
in urban and semi-urban areas. The third foundation
principle was social impact assessment, which is what
we are discussing this morning and I will discuss the SIA
somewhat in detail, after I finish this overview of the law.
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The third was SIA which really asks the question, what is
the land being acquired for, how much land is required,
who is affected, who needs to be compensated, and who
needs to get rehabilitated and resettled.
The fourth principle was resettlement and rehabilitation,
its actually the other way round, first you rehabilitate
then you resettle, so it is Rehabilitation and Resettlement
(R&R). We didn’t have a law till 2013, we had a policy
on R&R, and originally, during 2005-2006, the idea was
we will have two separate Laws, we will have one law
for LA and one law for R&R. But I took the view that
we should make it a part of one law to make it
comprehensive. So the fourth pillar was a statutory
backing to the R&R provisions, which should accompany
LA. These were both employment-related and all the
other provisions that were part of the R&R policy were
embodied in the law.
The fifth principle was, actually, a result of the unanimous
demand made from across the political spectrum, the
ruling party, the main opposition party and all regional
parties, that we must have a window for retrospective
provision as far as the law is concerned. Normally,
when we pass a law it is never retrospective, it is always
prospective, it is always for the future, but one of the
arguments that were made, very strongly, both in the
Standing Committee and in the Parliament was that this
new LA law has been on the anvil for a really long time,
so, people were acquiring land at very cheap rates, in
the hope that when the law gets passed, they will
make a windfall profit by selling off this land, that
profit should actually accrue to the landowners and
not to the people who have acquired the land. And,
therefore, there must be a reasonable retrospective
window and the reasonable retrospective window was
five years, because that was the period overwhich the
law was being discussed, so Section-24(2) became part
of the Law. It basically said that, if, within a period
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of previous five years, a landowner had not taken
compensation under the old law, he would be
entitled to compensation under the new law. So this is
retrospective window.
These are the five pillars of the law that we have in place
today. The new Government is trying to make major
amendments in three out of these five pillars, they kept
two pillars intact, they kept the compensation and the
R&R pillar intact. They tried to amend the consent pillar
as well as the social impact assessment measure and
they tried to amend the retrospective provision. They
tried to pass the Bill in Parliament, it didn’t go through,
there was opposition from across the political spectrum.
The Government then resorted to Sec-254, sub-clause
(2) of the Constitution which says that, if there are two
laws on a Concurrent Subject, normally, the Central Law
will prevail, however, the state Assembly can pass an
amendment which is repugnant to the national law and,
if that amendment is approved by the President of India,
then it becomes a part of the Statute Book. This was a sort
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of a back door way of carrying out the amendment, the
Central Law remains intact, however, Gujarat, Maharashtra,
Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Haryana have resorted to
Section 254(2) to carry out amendments in the three
pillars of the five pillars which I have mentioned. So this is
a broad overview of the Act and its salient features.
Let me now turn to the SIA, one of the most controversial
aspects of this law, which we are discussing this morning.
Why was SIA actually introduced? It is important to
understand that under the new law, consent is not
required for LA for government projects. In fact, I was
very keen and I fought till the last to make sure that
every project, government or private, should go through
the consent route, because this notion that government
acquires land only for some noble or social purposes has
been proved completely false in practise. However, my
own colleagues in the Government didn’t agree, there
was a lot of opposition to this from the state governments.
Finally, we allowed Government acquisition for public
projects, for Government projects not to be subject to
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the consent route. So, that was a compromise I had to
make. However, on one area, which I didn’t want to
compromise was SIA, and SIA is essential, under the law,
right now, for all projects, without exception. We have
a former Secretary, Rural Development sitting here,
Mrs Nirmala Buch. The idea of SIA goes back, there is a
long history to this in state governments and in the
Ministry. The reasoning was that our track record of LA
has been extremely unjust. Governments acquire more
land than they actually need, governments acquire land
in the name of a public purpose, but actual purpose
turns out to be private. And, governments acquire land
and provide compensation, which is not only far below
the market rate but many people don’t actually get
the compensation. Hence, was born the idea of a social
impact assessment. What is the essence of this social
impact assessment? Firstly, what is the land being
acquired for? I think it is incumbent on the government
acquiring the land to declare clearly what the land is
being acquired for. Secondly, how much land is required
and how much is being acquired? This is a very important
question. Because, there are many instances, over the
last 50–60 years, where land has been acquired in a
profligate manner, it has not been utilized. A classic
example of this is in Ranchi, some of you must have seen
the complex of Heavy Engineering Corporation Ltd.,
Ranchi, where thousands of acres of land were acquired,
I would say, in a criminal manner. It was acquired in
1950s and1960s and,only a few hundred acres have
been used. There are extremely large tracts of land
today that have been encroached upon, and the biggest
encroacher, I am sorry to say, is either the Government of
India or successive Governments of Bihar and Jharkhand.
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So, one, what are you acquiring the land for? That’s
the first question that you are answering. The second
question that you are answering is how much land do
you actually require and how much land are you going to
actually acquire? The third important question that the
SIA answers is, who is impacted by the LA? Because, our
experience in Singur, in Nandigram and our experience in
other LA such as POSCO, and other projects like Vedanta
in Odisha, across the country, is, when land is acquired
not only do landowners get affected, but, more
importantly, people whose livelihoods depend on the
land being acquired also get affected. These could be
landless, these could be bataidars or it could be people in
the informal sector of the economy, as we have discovered
in the case of Singur. So, the SIA is supposed to answer
this question—who is affected by the land acquisition?
We know that landowners are obviously going to be
affected by LA, that is, a sort of, first order impact, but,
there are second or third order impacts as well that are
not immediately evident. I want to underscore the fact
that is often forgotten, in the 2013 law, compensation
is provided not just to landowners but compensation
is also provided to livelihood losers. That is one of the
fundamental principles of the 2013 law. How do you
identify the livelihood losers, the informal sector workers,
and the landless? That can be only accomplished through
SIA carried out in a transparent and consultative manner.
The fourth important question that has to be answered by
the SIA is, what is the nature of public purpose for which
the land is being acquired, and will there be acquisitions
in future, because, one of the features of LA in this country
that we have seen is that land gets acquired, the value of
land appreciates after acquisition but the benefits of that
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appreciation do not accrue to the original landowners.
And this creates a lot of tension between those whose
land is being acquired and those who are benefitting
from the appreciation of the land value.
Thus, was born the idea that we should have, like we
have an EIA, we should have an SIA, which is carried out
by the gram sabha. Of course, they are not going to do
it on their own, but it is going to be done through other
professional and administrative channels, but the idea is
that, in six months’ time we should have SIA before the
land is being acquired,to answer these basic questions,
which, very often our experience says, have been taken
for granted. We know in state after state, the Governments
have not only acquired land in excess of the requirements,
but Governments have also acquired land and have put
it to a completely different purpose. The state of Uttar
Pradesh for instance, in the first years of the 21st century,
acquired land, thousands of acres of land in the name of
public purpose and it was turned over to private builders.
We have the experience in Greater Noida and places
not very far away from Delhi, which we can see. So, this
is the background to SIA. It has proved, amongst all the
five principles of the Act that I mentioned to you, to be
the most contentious. Actually, the amendment under
Section 254(2) carried out by Gujarat, by Maharashtra,
by Telengana, by Tamil Nadu, proposed to be carried out
by Rajasthan, but it was not passed in their legislature,
relates to the SIA. And the argument that was given by
the state governments was that it adds to time, it is time
consuming, it becomes a politically contentious process
and, that, we could do without it. What has happened is
that state governments have resorted to Section 254(2)
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to exempt government projects from SIA. They have
not removed the provision of SIA for non-government
projects, for public–private participation (PPP) or for
private projects. But, government infrastructure projects
have been exempted from the SIA provision of the
new law.
So, this is where we are at, and, as I said, it is important
for us to understand the background to SIA. If the
government’s track record of LA in the last 50–60 years
had given confidence to both the landowners and
livelihood losers that land is being acquired in a manner
that is commensurate for the purpose for which it is
being acquired and fair compensation is being paid, I
think much of the agitation that we have seen in state
after state on LA would not have happened. Right now, as
we speak, there is a LA agitation underway in Gujarat and
Maharashtra, against the bullet train projects. I, myself,
have visited these areas. People are asking the questions
that I have asked, how much land do you need? How
much are you actually acquiring? The compensation
is not really the issue, because they know that the law
provides for enhanced compensation. And, will they
get the benefit from the appreciation in the land value,
knowing, of course, that this is a government project.
Let me conclude by saying that much of the criticism
of this new law has come, in my view, from a lack of
appreciation that this is a law for land acquisition. It is
not a law for land purchase. In fact, one of the purposes
of this law is to discourage acquisition of land since
people should have bilateral transactions in land and it
is not possible immediately because of the asymmetries
of power and information between the land buyer and
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the land seller. It is also not possible because it is not
realistic, because the state of land records, being what
they are, and the existence of land mafias in state after
state, but the law provides for land leasing and for land
pooling. In fact, Amaravati, the new capital of Andhra
Pradesh, is a good example of land pooling. So, this
Law is only for acquisition. In fact, let me share with you
that the Standing Committee of Parliament, which had
31 members, chaired by Sumitra Mahajan, their various
recommendations, and, another recommendation that I
did not accept, was that land should not be acquired, even
for private projects as also for PPP projects. They went, in
fact, to the other extreme of saying there should be no LA
per say, for non-government entities. If the governments
want to acquire lands, they should acquire lands. These
were the two recommendations, one for private projects
and one for PPP, that the Government didn’t accept,
otherwise, all the other recommendations were accepted.
In my view,this law is meant to discourage acquisition of
land by Governments for private or PPP projects. And,
to the extent possible, use other alternatives, including,
direct transactions between landowners and those who
require the land.
As far as the amendments themselves are concerned, I
think, it’s very clear that in the tenure of this Parliament
there will be no amendments to the main law. However,
state governments have carried out amendments, as I
have mentioned to you, five or six of them, but only to
the provisions related to informed consent and also for
SIA. Largely SIA, but some states have dispensed with the
requirement of written consent of 70% of the landowners
in case of PPP.
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All in all, I think, this has been a way forward, and I will
end by saying that when the law was passed, it met
with immediate criticism from two types of people. It
was criticized by Medha Patekar and company who
believed that this law was not progressive and it was
also criticized by the Confederation of Indian Industry
(CII) and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce
and Industry (FICCI) on the grounds that the law was too
progressive, and restricted economic activity. I had an
occasion to say somewhere that, if both Medha Patkar
and FICCI are unhappy, there must be something of value
in this law, because this is a middle path law. One of the
lessons that I have learnt is that the essence of good
policy making is not to achieve balanced satisfaction
but to achieve balanced dissatisfaction. If everybody is
dissatisfied in an equitable manner, I think, we are on the
right track and that’s what I believe, as far as this Act is
concerned. Thank you.
Joyita Ghose: Thank you very much, sir, for sharing your
insights on the key provisions of the law, specifically the
SIA process and some of the major issues which have
arisen in the last five years. I am sure some people in
the audience will also like to ask you some questions.
We will have about ten minutes for any question from the
audience.
Dr Abhijit Guha, First, I thank TERI and then Mr Jairam
Ramesh, for coming today. I have several observations on
this new law since I have been working in this area for a
long time. First, why under the ‘appropriate government’,
the local self-governments were not included? I mean
the Panchayats and the Municipal organizations. In my
view, this seems to be a violation of the 73rd and the
74th amendments of the Indian Constitution. Under the
‘appropriate government’, this law has only included
the Central and the state governments, but not local
government, this seems like an anomaly for me. Second,
why is there no separate provision for corporate social
responsibility in this law. I believe that there should be
a mandatory provision because, when you acquire lands
for the corporates, I have seen through my own field
experiences, that where undulated, unfertile, wastelands
exist, the corporates choose the fertile agricultural lands.
I tried to investigate why this happens all the time and
what came out from my own research in Midnapore,
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West Bengal, was that the corporates choose the fertile
land, because they are already levelled and prepared,
so that they incur lesser costs than if they chose the
wastelands. So, this sort of thing has to be addressed in
the law. Suppose, a corporate chooses infertile land, it
can be given some sort of tax relaxation. All the time I
have seen that the corporates choose the agricultural
land, rather than the wasteland. The third point is, all
the time we hear that multi-cropped land will not be
acquired, this has also been incorporated in the new law,
as if, the mono-cropped lands do not serve any purpose,
as if, when you say that when the multi-cropped land will
not be acquired, your business is done. But what are the
irrigation departments doing, is it not the policy of our
government, that all mono-crop should be transferred
to double and triple crops. So, when you allow people to
acquire the mono-crop land, it is as if they do not serve
any purpose. In fact, I have seen through my fieldworks
that mono-crop lands do provide ample food security
to the people who were cultivating those lands. There
is virtually no provision in the Act to safeguard monocropped lands. The fourth thing that I would like to
point out is that there is no provision for financing for
development in this law. I think, Mr Ramesh, you are
aware of Michael Cernea’s recent works on financing
for development where he proposes that in case of
private industries, the land losers should be made the
shareholders of the company. There are many examples
of this outside India, this law has virtually no provision
for financing for development and the long-term benefit
sharing by the PAPs. Thank you.
Mr Jairam Ramesh: I will just give a very brief answer.
There is a whole section in the Act, on the Gram Sabha,
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this has proved to be very contentious, between the
state governments and the Centre. We introduced it and
we found that it is actually observed more in the breach,
than in actual practice. However, according to provisions
of the Law, the Gram Sabha has a central role to play in
the acquisition of land. It is the Gram Sabha, which is
actually responsible for the social impact assessment,
number one. Particularly, in the Scheduled Areas, without
the consent of the Gram Sabha, and the Palli Sabha, the
land cannot be acquired. Unfortunately, as part of Section
245(2) amendment, states like Jharkhand, for example,
the provision is no longer mandatory. It is no longer
mandatory to get the permission of Gram Sabha, the
word ‘consultation’ has been interpreted to mean that
we will inform them, it is not being interpreted to mean
‘concurrence’. The word ‘advise’ has been interpreted in
such a manner that it is no longer prior-informed-consent
and this is how land is being acquired in Jharkhand. This is
part of the problem which has bedevilled Jharkhand, this
is one of the reasons why there has been a lot of agitation
against the amendments. Of course, this is a part of a
larger slew of amendments that they have carried out, it
has proved to be contentious. Actually, the Gram Sabha
has a central role to play in the acquisition of the land.
But, I must admit to you that this was over the objections
of many regional parties, you know, who believed that
their rights were being actually curtailed, see, land
figures in the State List, LA figures in the Concurrent List,
it doesn’t figure in the list of responsibilities of the local
governments. And, most state governments, in fact, all
state governments, irrespective of political parties, want
decentralization from Delhi but are not prepared to do
decentralization within their own state. The regional
parties in Parliament were quite clear that maximum
they would countenance was that Centre can pass
this law, taking recourse to the fact that it is part of the
Concurrent List, but they were not prepared to cede the
responsibilities, further, to local governments.
So, this continues to be a big political battle, I think, we
have not heard the last of it. As you know, we have a
separate CSR law, as part of the Companies Act, we have
had three years of experience. But, one of the CSR that
is embedded in the Act relates to R&R, we can take the
argument that resettlement and rehabilitation is very
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much a part of corporate social responsibility. One of the
things, which, again, became very controversial, states
like Madhya Pradesh where opposed to this, because
of the large irrigation projects that were coming up,
the Law says that the R&R process must be initiated,
not completed. R&R takes a long time, so it must only
be initiated, as part of the LA process. I remember an
official from Madhya Pradesh saying that R&R provision
would really impede progress, in a large number of
irrigation projects.
You are right, the law doesn’t make farmers the equity
shareholders in projects but there are two provisions in
the law, one, if the land is not utilized, there was a debate
whether it is five years or whether it should be ten years,
but, if my memory serves me right, it is now ten years, if
the land remains unutilized, it reverts back to either the
land owner, if he can be identified, or his relatives. Else, it
comes back to the state government, it comes back to the
land bank. In fact, this was a demand made by the Chief
Minister of West Bengal at that time, if I recall correctly.
However, there is a second provision. Land was being
acquired, this law became a reality in 2013, a lot of people
had started acquiring land in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011,
2012 in the expectation that there would be a new law,
they acquired the land at very cheap rates and now, they
would sell this land and obviously make windfall profit.
The law provides that 40% of that gain will go back to the
landowners, the person from whom the land was being
acquired. I agree with you, this equity sharing thing was
discussed and, finally, it was not found practically feasible,
there was no support for it, across the spectrum, I am
afraid. I think I have answered all your questions.
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Ah sorry, multi-cropped land, yeah, there is a separate
provision. In fact, this is one of the objectives of SIA, to
determine if the land being acquired is mono-cropped,
double-cropped, multi-cropped. If you may recall, in the
Act there is a specific provision, which says that multicropped irrigated land will not be acquired, in fact, an
upper limit is put on the acquisition of this land. This
provision was objected to by Punjab and Haryana, they
didn’t want this provision. However, we tried to convince
them, let there be this provision.The argument given
by Punjab and Haryana is that all the land that is being
acquired in Punjab and Haryana will be multi-cropped
and irrigated land. So, one of the purposes of SIA is
to determine the nature of the land being acquired,
whether it is mono-cropped or multi-cropped, and, if I
recall correctly, the Act says that it will be acquired only
as a demonstrable last resort, only after exhausting all
alternatives, would this multi-cropped irrigated land be
acquired. And, how do you convince people that you
have looked at all the options, that is only through a SIA.
Ms Archana Goswami, Gujarat Institute of
Development, Ahmedabad: We are working on the
process of documenting research of Ahmedabad–
Gandhinagar metro project for which land is mainly
acquired in the urban area. The Act is not talking
about compensation to the encroachers, especially, on
government land, like these squatters, huts, jhuggi/jhopri
people. Most of the metro projects in India are funded by
some international organization like Japan International
Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the World Bank, these
funding agencies talk about giving fair compensation to
the encroachers as well, whereas it is not there in the Act.
Is it mandatory for agencies to adhere to the
requirements of international agencies, or are we
diluting what is said in the Act? Thank you.
Mr Jairam Ramesh: First of all, who is an encroacher,
and again, I come back to SIA. The purpose of the SIA is
to establish who is an encroacher and whose livelihood
is dependent on the land being acquired, and, I suspect
the state governments are very liberal in defining who
an encroacher is, in order to evade their responsibility of
giving compensation to the people living on the land that
is being acquired. I don’t know the particular case that you
are referring to, but I have experienced in other projects
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that people who have been defined as encroachers, are
actually not encroachers, they are people who depend
for their livelihoods, different ways of livelihood, by either
working on the land or in some informal sector, occupation
related to the land being acquired. Again, the idea of SIA
was to make a comprehensive evaluation, of not only
the landowners whose information is easily available,
but, more importantly, of those people, like, you say, are
encroachers, who have been living there for reasonable
period of time or who have come there recently in the
expectation, that they would get compensation, this is
the entire purpose of the SIA. There is nothing in this law
which says you must follow international norms. I think
the law is sufficiently clear, I think Gujarat Government
has dispensed with the SIA, yea, they have, as part of
amendment under Section 254(2), so the SIA has been
removed, so the question is academic in Gujarat. But the
fact is, if the law was honestly applied, you would have
done SIA on these hundreds of families who are living in
this land and you would probably find that they may not
be encroachers, they may not have tenancy rights, they
may not have firm pattas but their livelihoods are certainly
dependent on land that is being acquired and, according
to this law, compensation is to be provided even to
them. There is no differential rate of compensation, the
compensation is the same that you are providing to the
landowners.
Mr Asim Choudhary, ONGC: I have also been engaged
in land acquisition at National Highways Authority of
India when it started the large-scale land acquisition in
1997–2001. During that time, the ADB and World Bank
had funded the projects and, at that time, this problem
of encroachment and, whether to pay the squatter, had
cropped up. My question to you, sir, is that the 1894 Act,
except for the four pitfalls—one was determination of
compensation by the Collector; second, the urgency
clause; third, R&R clause; and, fourth, is the social impact,
the 1894 Act was complete in itself. The 1894 Act has
seen large acquisitions for steel plants, coal mines, etc.
Except, of course, the provisions of the SIA and R&R was
missing. The nation had a separate R&R policy, what
actually was the trigger that we made a new law? Why
couldn’t we make a small amendment, incorporate R&R,
reduce the power of Collector and a couple of more
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things? Sir, why didn’t we amend the 1894 Act, which was
largely beneficial? Thank you.
Mr Jairam Ramesh: Well, you were not here when I made
my opening remarks as to what were the foundational
pillars of the Act. The 1894 Act was a draconian Act,
completely draconian, given that it reflected the spirit
of its time. I am not criticizing it, it was based on the
principle of ‘Eminent Domain’, and the fundamental
difference between the 2013 Act and 1894 Act is that
we have abandoned the principle of ‘Eminent Domain’.
I think 1894 Act was amended twice, it was amended,
if I remember right, in the’60s, it got amended in ‘85 or
‘86. In fact, I considered why not just amend the 1894 Act
and put enhanced compensation, which everybody was
asking for. I beg to disagree with you, I think the track
record of our LA-1894 Act has certainly enabled the state
Governments and Central Government to acquire huge
amounts of land on which they are sitting. Rajasthan State
Industrial Development and Investment Corporation Ltd
(RIICO) is sitting on 70,000 hectares of land, you don’t
need any more land to be acquired in Rajasthan. Land
has been acquired in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka,
and Jharkhand I have given the example of HEC. Yes, the
1894 Act enabled large amounts of land to be acquired
for both public and private sector projects, it was easy
acquisition. I wish that the acquisition had been done
in a more sensitive and humane manner as we are still
grappling with the consequences of that acquisition. I
have seen irrigation projects in Madhya Pradesh and now
in Chhattisgarh, where people have been displaced not
once, but, they have been displaced twice and this is all a
consequence of the 1894 Act.
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It was a solution and it was certainly a route that people
talked about, but let me tell you, this entire process of
re-drafting the Act started in 2007; between 2007 and
2013, there was not a single political party which asked
to amend the 1894 Act. Every political party said, “Naya
kanoon banna zaroori hai” (It is necessary to enact a new
law). You just look at the debates in Parliament and in
the media, but no one spoke about just cleaning up the
1894 Act, everybody said, we need a new law to provide
for compensation, R&R and so on. Yes, it is a route we
could take, I mean the British did many good things, but
I don’t think the 1894 Act was one of them. I am sorry,
it gave huge powers, had it been used properly, I would
have no problems with it. I have seen projects, where
land has been acquired under the urgency clause, the
land is yet to be utilized. I am sure many of you know
that this Land Acquisition Act doesn’t apply to national
highways, coal mines, railways, power transmission
projects, and defence. However, there is a provision
in this law, that one year after the passage of this law,
provisions of this law will apply to those laws, that have
not happened. Actually, if you take the total land being
acquired in this country, it is a very miniscule portion
that is being acquired under this Act. Much of the land
that is being acquired is under The Coal Act, The Railways
Act, The Power Act, The Defence Act, The Atomic Energy
Act, but we had made provision that there would be
replication of the benefits of this Act into those laws, but
that has not happened. However, I am happy to say that
Mr Gadkari has taken the compensation part from this
law and made it applicable for highway projects. It has
not happened in railways, it has not happened in defence,
it has not happened in power, but it has happened in NH,
it’s not happened in coal, has it happened in coal?(in the
background, yea, yes sir), so the enhanced compensation
has come in coal that’s good, that’s a big step forward. I
think, to that extent, this law has had a positive impact.
Joyita Ghose: I think the questions can go on until lunch
but we do have a panel discussion also planned. Sir, if you
don’t mind, we will delay the handing over of the token
to the end of the discussion, since you are staying. I now
invite the other two panelists to also join us on the dais,
Dr D Suresh, Divisional Commissioner of Gurgaon and
Mr V S Bisht, Executive VP, PTC India Financial Service Ltd. I
invite Mr Arun Kumar to please begin the session.
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89
Mr Arun Kumar, Former Secretary, Ministry of Mines:
This session is devoted to a discussion on the SIA, how
it has played out in the last five years. We have a group
of panellists, Dr Samanta, Dr Suresh, and Mr Bisht, who
bring various perspectives to the table. I, rightly so, as a
generalist bureaucrat, am supposed to moderate the
discussion, as it were. So, to begin with, I would request
Dr Samanta, because he comes from the generic policy
framework, to lay the ground for the discussion.
DR DEBRATA SAMANTA,
Assistant Professor, Chandragupta Institute
of Management, Patna:
I would first like to thank TERI and Mrs Das for inviting
me. I have been associated with some SIA projects in
Bihar and Dr Das told me to share my field experience,
so I would like to share my field experience only. We
have already talked about the policy and the paradigm
that has been changed through this policy, so I will
not touch upon it. One of the main pillar as identified
by sir, we introduced SIA strategy to invite people
to give their views and to identify who are actually
getting affected by this acquisition process. Definitely,
SIA has created a space between people and the
government for deliberations and discussions. But if
I share my field experience, I think that deliberation,
discussion should start much before, not at the start
of the project, it should start at the time of designing
the project. We found in one green field project that a
huge chunk of land had to be acquired and people of
the villages adjacent to where the landowners reside,
were extremely violent and resisted the move. There
was threat to life, suicide, and people were not ready to
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give away their land, whatever be the compensation.
Because, they think that their livelihood will be affected.
When they got the design, they expressed the view that
those who are going to lose their land will get some
compensation, but if the project is implemented, it will
stop the flow of water to the other side with the result
that the land of adjoining villages will become infertile
in 2–3 years. So, they will lose in both ways, neither will
they get compensation and they will end up with the
infertile land. Moreover, if the project gets implemented,
the adjacent villages will be inundated with water,
throughout the year. So, there was extreme resistance
from the people, not only the particular village, but all
the villages. So, my question is, can we think of inviting
people at the time of designing the project? In this case,
they not only resisted, they came out with alternative
design. They said, instead of taking this part of the
land, if the other part of the land is taken, the land to
be acquired will be very less and people will be happy
to give away their land. But, changing the design at
that stage had a high stake. The design is an extremely
technical component, which cannot be changed at that
time, though the SIA has the provision for asking for a
change of the design. This is my observation.
I am sharing my experience in Bihar. Bihar has very old
land records, based on a cadastral survey conducted
almost hundred years back. In 1960s, some revisionary
survey was done in some districts but, that has not
been concluded. However, in 2011, the Government has
passed another Act for quick survey. The Land Survey
and Settlement Act, 2011, provides for quick survey
with modern technology. However, the progress has
been slow, the data has been uploaded for one district
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only. In the last 100 or even 40 years, there have been
transfers of land, inter-generational as well but these
are not reflected in the mutation. So, whenever we
go for SIA, we get multiple claimants for a single plot,
because they are actually legal heirs of that particular
plot. Identifying the right person is very difficult and
everyone claims that their land is being acquired, or their
land is not getting acquired, depending on whether they
would be benefitted or harmed by the project. If the
land data can be updated, the problem can be greatly
reduced. Definitely, there is a paradigm change, where
the indirectly affected people have been acknowledged
for compensation for the first time. However, when we
visit the field, the sharecropper just disappears, because
of the law of adverse possession. Section 48 C of the Bihar
Tenancy Act says that if any sharecropper holds a piece
of land for twelve or more years, he has the occupancy
right on a particular land. Due to this, no landowner
recognizes his sharecropper. Sharecropper has lesser
voice as compared to the landowner, so, it is extremely
hard to identify the actual sharecropper, and he doesn’t
disclose that I am the sharecropper on that particular
plot of land. Also, you will find no one is an agricultural
labourer, everyone claims that he is doing cultivation on
my own land and all his family members are working.
So, sharecropper, agriculture labour, they just disappear
from the field. This way, one of the pillars which actually
acknowledges the indirectly affected people to receive
compensation, gets diluted. There are talks about diluting
Section 48 C, as well as NITI Aayog has come up with land
leasing policy, where they consider the transfer of some
right to the sharecropper so that they can get access to
credit and relief in case of a calamity.
These are the main observations. We have come across
a case where the project has been implemented in
2011–2012 but compensation has not been paid. We
have to re-initiate the formal procedure for acquisition
after 6–7 years, and definitely the land loser should be
compensated as per the new Act, because they have lost
the opportunity to till their land, also, they have not been
paid the compensation. I don’t know how this illegal thing
can be addressed. The Act doesn’t say anything about this.
Apart from this, we have the capacity gap from everyone,
from our side also, we as a SIA unit. I‘ll just brief you
RFCTLARR Conference 2018
about Bihar’s SIA unit, wherein the RFCTLARR Rules have
been formulated in 2014, and three institutes, research
and academic in nature, have been identified by the
government to conduct SIA. I am an Assistant Professor
at Chandragupta Institute of Management, Patna, which
is one of the SIA Units. Definitely, there are capacity gap,
from our side, as well, as from the government side. SIA is
more than just a report, it is not like, please send us the
report so that we can attach and forward the file. I think I
will conclude here. Thank you.
Mr Arun Kumar: Thank you very much, Dr Samanta, for
initiating the discussion about what the SIA Unit feels on
the ground, which is very essential to offering solutions. I
would now request Shri Bisht because he comes from the
finance world and, as some people say, money makes the
world go round, so let us see what he has to say.
MR V S BISHT,
Senior Vice President, PTC India Financial
Services Ltd
I have got a small presentation. I come from the NonBanking Financial Sector. Though, we are not directly
involved in land acquisition but we fund a number of
power projects. You know that power projects have to
acquire large tracts of land, so we come indirectly into the
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picture. To give you an example of the intensity of land
in power project, if you talk about thermal coal power
project, it is 0.75 acre to 1.5 acre per MW. It can vary by
10%, higher the size of the unit, less is the land required
on per MW basis. Land is mainly required for the power
block cooling water, coal handling, evacuation, railway
siding, colliery, etc. As you may be aware, hydro is sitespecific, less land for run-of river, more for storage type.
Land is basically required for the reservoir submergence.
In hydro power projects, power plant and colony require
very small part of the total land required for the project.
The wind and solar are the latest in the power projects,
everyone is going for solar and wind. If we talk about
the land required, there are two types of model. In wind
power projects, one is, you go by the footprint basis
and, the other model, is to go by contiguous piece of
land which takes care of the inner roads and evacuation
system. The land required is 1.5–2 acres per ‘Wind Turbine
Generator’ (WTG) in case of footprint basis and if you go
for contiguous land then the land required would be
more, about 2.5–5 acres per WTG, so it is a huge amount
of land. If you are going for 100 MW of wind farm, the
land requirement can go anywhere from 200 acres to
300 acres, or up to 500 acres of land. If you go for solar
photovoltaic (PV), the land required is 4.5 acres–6 acres
for the land mounted, of course, the roof mounted panels
don’t require land. The land is mainly required for putting
up the solar panels. In case of solar thermal the land
requirements is slightly more. So, for solar PV you need a
lot more land compared to coal or even hydro project, so
it is land intensive. I was listening to the previous speaker,
and, somebody in the audience also said that multicropped land should not be acquired. In case of Punjab
and Haryana, where a number of solar plants are being
set up, land is very costly so it is being taken on lease.
Basically, it is all multi-cropped fertile agricultural land,
otherwise, you don’t have any other option since barren
land is extremely less there.
In case of thermal and solar projects you can have some
kind of flexibility while in case of hydro, it is site-specific,
the land has to be taken where the dam has to be built,
wind project is also site-specific though there can be
some kind of change in the location of wind turbine.
In nut shell, power projects require huge tract of land
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seen in Odisha, in Angul, NTPC had constructed a project
way back in 1980s. Recently, when we went for lending
for a small project of 20 megawatt, the villagers came and
said, “We will not allow you to build this project, because
in 1980s NTPC had acquired our land, but they have not
yet compensated us”. Can you imagine 30 years ago an
incident had happened and they are not allowing you
to go ahead with a small project now? So, people learn,
and if an issue is not resolved at that point of time, it can
emerge for a subsequent investment.
and purchasing a 1000, 2000, to 3000 acre is next to
impossible. It may take ten years or fifteen years, nobody
has got so much of time, so people generally go for the
acquisition mode only. The project proponents say, yes,
we have got the land but when the implementation
begins, then issues come up. I will be sharing one or two
examples of this.
Now, when we go as a lender in a project where land is
purchased, there are issues with land records. They vary
from one state to another while in many states, land
records are not maintained, there are language issues,
because in some states, it is in their local language and
then you have to get it translated and translated versions
are generally not reliable. The stamp duty is also a big
issue, because, in some cases, it is a percentage of the
loan amount. If you are going for Rs 1000 crore loan
and stamp duty is 2%, it comes to around Rs 20 crores,
which is a huge amount. We also have to see that there
is no issue of pending litigation. As a lender we have to
see all these things, it is necessary to take responsible
decision, to make sustainable investment, to create long
term value for shareholders, positive economic and social
contributions, prevent disruption of operation. Once we
start funding the project, we don’t want these issues to
lead to stoppage of work. Sometimes, project developers
will acquire partial land and they will say, “okay, now we
can go ahead”. But one or two years down the line it can
lead to stoppage of the work. And, once you have taken
the loan, it becomes a very unviable proposition for the
promoters as well as for the lenders also.
When the projects get started, sometimes, there is
resistance and agitation from local community. We have
You know R&R issue, prior to this Land Acquisition Act,
R&R was a big issue in hydro projects. We have seen in
the case of Sardar Sarovar project and in Shri Maheswar
project also, there was a lot of local community resistance,
given the extent of submergence. The Sardar Sarovar
project was delayed, the Shri Maheswar project is still
stalled, when the project gets stalled, the interest on the
loan drawn starts building up and the project becomes
totally unviable due to accumulated interest leading to
high project cost. Another problem is the higher amount
of compensation, vis-a-vis what was considered in the
feasibility report. Sometimes, the project proponent will
consider one cost of land in the feasibility report but
actually that cost is much higher. And after the LA Act,
2013, compensation cost has become very high, so it
may make our projects unviable. In case of solar project,
as far as possible, we should use barren land. I gave you
the example of Haryana and Punjab, where it is next to
impossible to find barren land but people are putting up
solar power plants there.
So, when we fund power project, we always see whether
the land has been obtained through acquisition,
whether the SIA was conducted, whether, both physical
and economic displacement have been taken into
account, whether the process was transparent. We are
into sustainable lending which is aligned with the IFC
Performance Standards (IFCPS). We have a check list for
sanctioning loans in line with IFCPS, we go over it one by
one to see whether the project developer has followed
the norms. When we talk about acknowledging social
risk, during construction stage, there is occupational,
health and safety risk to workers, land contamination
due to improper handling, some leakage, blast or dust
emission may take place, and air pollution.
RFCTLARR Conference 2018
I will also talk about the risks during the operational
stage. In case of thermal project there will be pollution
on account of gas emissions, there will be increase in
tariffs, there is a lot of traffic which totally changes the
fragile ecosystem. In case of hydro-project there is loss
of habitat, biodiversity, fragmentation of ecosystem,
impacts on flood dependent ecology and agriculture,
because every year, when floods come it brings new soil,
but this stops after the construction of dam. In case of
wind power, though it is supposed to be renewable, there
is some noise impact, there is impact on local birds and
migratory birds. Solar power projects need a lot of water
to clean the panel and, generally, solar power plants are
put up in a barren land, where there is scarcity of water,
so that is a big issue.
Now, I would like to share some experience. In Punjab
and Haryana, the solar panels are being put up mostly
on fertile land, in case of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, land is
not available due to high density of population, there is
lot of political interference also. In case of Odisha, I have
shared one example where there is a lot of agitation from
local community. In case of Karnataka, there is a deemed
NA for land for renewable projects, but it still takes a lot
of time. In Maharastra there is a cap on direct purchase of
land. In Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana,
Madhya Pradesh, we don’t find much issue in LA. In the
case of West Bengal LA is a big issue. East Coast thermal
project in AP has been stalled for the last 3 years, two
times it went for environmental clearance. The interest
on loan built up and the cost went totally haywire,
promoters ran away, lenders stopped the project. Athena
dam is in Arunachal Pradesh, it is a very large project,
Rs 2000 crores have been spent, there are some issues
of LA, ecosystem is fragile, forest is getting submerged,
again, it is in a stalled condition. In North-Eastern states
there are issues of multiple ownership, in Nagaland,
the land is not in a particular name, it is generally in
community name. When you go for LA there, it becomes
very difficult to finalize the compensation, because, once
you give compensation to one person, the next day
another person would say, ”No, I am his brother, you have
to compensate me also”, so it goes on like this. I think that
is all I want to share.
Mr Arun Kumar: Thank you very much Mr Bisht. We
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93
acquired an overview of what the industry thinks vis-avis LA.
Joyita Ghose: We will now continue with the panel
discussion.
Mr Arun Kumar: I would now request, Dr Suresh,
Divisional Commissioner, Gurugram, to talk about his
experiences, from the states’ perspective.
DR DAMMU SURESH,
Divisional Commissioner, Gurugram
The Act itself, he has been its architect, exemplifies
sensitivity for the farmer and people whose lands are
acquired. I completely agree with his observation that
the governments have always got it wrong with regard
to urgency, acquisition proceedings and the way land
has been acquired. I think, it was long overdue what was
done in 2013, I entirely agree. At the same time, there is
also a possibility of unfair enrichment sometimes, for the
farmers. Let’s not think that the farmer is the victim in all
scenarios, so that is not correct. I am the chairman of the
land price fixation committee in Gurugram. In Gurugram
Division, there have been instances where we have seen
that the prices of certain lands are in the range of Rs 15-20
crores. If you are going to be paying that kind of money
to the farmers, it is not always that the government wants
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to acquire, there are many scenarios where farmer wants
the government to acquire the land. I think, somewhere,
the rates of Gurugram are comparable to or more than
New Jersey, or maybe, Manhattan. But the solution to
that would be scientific valuation, which I will be talking
about in the course of my talk here.
I have been asked by Preeti to talk about land records
basically, but, I will not limit my talk merely to Haryana.
I would say that in the entire country, the land records
management is in shambles, it is managed terribly.
I would admit that, even though, as the Revenue Head,
I am responsible for that division. The system is so bad
that the solutions have been difficult to come by and
this has been compounded by lack of seriousness on
the part of the state governments. I am not saying it
with regard to Haryana only, Haryana has probably done
better, but across the country there is lack of seriousness
with regards to computerization of land records, and
the seriousness that needs to be given to the resolution
of issues associated with LA has not been there. I have
problem with their pilot projects, these pilot projects
started somewhere, here and there but never get
completed. Important projects are not completed, we
are always in experimenting mode for years together,
for 25 years. Computerization of land records had
started in Haryana in 1991, in many states, more than
30–35 years ago, but it is still not complete. I have yet
to come across a single state government that has
completely computerized land records in a scientific and
comprehensive manner. I mean there is a lot of talk about
land records computerization being implemented very
effectively, in places like Karnataka and Andhra, I belong
to Andhra Pradesh. I don’t know what has happened in
the last three-four years, but, prior to that, when I had
visited things were not very good. Maybe, in last twothree years if something extraordinary has been done,
then I don’t know. So, people are really struggling. I think,
it is the responsibility of the government that the records
are safe, scientific and people should get value for their
land and government should be in a position to say that
x, y, z they are the owners of the land. We need to move
from presumptive titling to conclusive titling, it is easier
said than done. Government should be in a position to
say that ‘x’ is the owner. If you don’t do that then there
is a lot of chaos, law and order problems, litigations.
In our country, the approach towards land records
management is presumptive, the revenue authorities say
it is not their responsibility to say who the owner is, you
have to presume the owner, the presumption comes by
a set of records, jamabandi, mutation, kasra, Girdawari,
etc. This presumption that you are the owner, I think, that
is creating a lot of confusion. The revenue department
says that the responsibility of finally declaring who is the
owner of a particular land is with the civil court. The civil
courts are not sufficiently trained, the lower courts,I mean,
with regard to revenue law. And, looking at the average
time taken in this country for resolution of civil disputes,
it is documented as twenty years, from the lowest court
to the Supreme Court, it puts the common man in a
miserable condition. It is not the responsibility of the civil
court to declare somebody as the owner. It should be the
responsibility of the government, to declare that x,y,z is
the owner of a particular piece of land, and if they have
any problem they can go to the courts later on.
Here, we have a situation where the revenue law says
the mutation doesn’t confer any title, Jamabandi is only
a presumption of truth, registration of deed is only the
registration of a document. The Registration Act, 1908
only says that registration of deeds is registration of
transaction. There is nothing within the revenue law
or within the registration Act which says that after
the registration, somebody has become an owner,
this is unfortunate. Same property can be registered a
number of times, there is no check, there is no linkage
of land records and registration. Haryana has achieved
about 90% linkage between records and registration,
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nonetheless, there is a lot of scope for manual
intervention. Even in the states where computerization
has happened to a large extent, still a lot of manual
intervention is possible, a lot of discretion is given to the
revenue officials. Supreme Court decides a matter and a
patwari is still trying to say that it doesn’t work this way
or that way. The problem is, we are using a lot of terms in
Urdu. Although, most of the north Indian towns now use
Hindi, but a lot of terms like jamabandi, Kaal, etc., are Urdu
terms. The common man doesn’t understand kasra, kevat,
katauni, jumla, musurka, malkan. I think, we need to move
towards what is intelligible, what is comprehensible to
common man, maybe, to foreign investors, why don’t we
move towards Hindi and English. People should be able
to understand clearly, the excessive use of Urdu words
gives a lot of freedom, to the patwari, and the tehsildar
and the kanugo, who are not well versed in revenue law,
but the mystic that is created, the terminology gives the
revenue official tremendous amount of power to confuse
the common man. This gives them a lot of discretion and
the helpless common man says, “here, take this money
and do my work”. We need to have a scenario where
common man is able to understand. Why this beeghe,
bismil, marla, karam, kanal? I think you need to move
towards the metric system. Even if you want to use those
terms, use them in the brackets. Across the board these
terms are continuing, people don’t understand, foreign
investors don’t understand, even government officials
don’t understand, Collectors don’t understand, revenue
law is so complex. I don’t consider myself as an authority,
having worked in Gurugram, as Divisional Commissioner,
for the last three and a half years. I can only say that I have
been a witness to this confusion, and the helplessness of
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the common people. I presented proposals to the present
Government to do away with it and the Government is
still considering. There are a lot of vested interests and
revenue department people are very powerful people,
it is not very easy to get across your point of view. I am
part of the system, but why am I not able to do it, I am
not saying with regard to Haryana, but with regard to the
entire country. And the revenue officials, patwari, kanugo,
tehsildar they have not adopted this computerization
project. Nearly 90% of the revenue officials, lower level
people, from tehsildar to Patwari, are not computer savvy.
This is compounded by their attitude of not wanting to
learn computers. So, I suggested to the Revenue Minister
that we should post only those patwaris and kanugos
who are computer savvy, at least in sensitive areas, the
Government is considering. These people think that it is
not their job, it is not their project, they do not own this
project. Their indifference is compounded by NIC which
never completes any project, it starts and leaves it in
between, never completes any project. If you ask, ”Kya ho
raha hai, 90% humara ho gaya” (what is happening, 90%
of our job is over). 90% is over, we have been hearing
this for the last so many years, so we have given up.
Pilot project should be completed, they remain pilot
for decades all together, I am suspicious about these
pilot projects. While we say it is the responsibility of the
government to ensure property, government is not able
to secure its own properties. There are instances where
government properties are sold, resold. I think time has
come for conclusive titling.
Our revenue records are not linked to banks, so, banks
have no idea about what the revenue records are, they
say registration must be done, otherwise we will not give
you the loan, not realizing that registration is nothing.
You can have a piece of property registered ten times,
by ten people and transacted ten times. People have
no idea, banks have no idea about the mess of revenue
records, everyone is running behind registration. They
think, once registration has been done, it is safe. They are
not safe because land records and registration are not
linked, banks have no idea, courts have no idea, courts
are sometimes staying mutation processes without
understanding. So, there is a lot of confusion with regard
to land records and the time has come to do something
RFCTLARR Conference 2018
about it. I am told that on account of mismanagement of
land records, we are losing 1.3 % of the gross domestic
product (GDP) growth rate annually. In urban areas, about
5% of land is embroiled in title and boundary litigation
and in the peri-urban area it is about 28%. These figures
are pretty phenomenal. I was also told that the most
significant bottleneck for ease of doing business is land
records mismanagement. So, how do we improve things.
I think we need to, one, computerize the land records
completely, end to end, we need to have linkage between
land records, registration processes and cadastral
mapping. Cadastral mapping is in a mess. The problem
with government functioning is, whether it is NIC or the
satellite people, they don’t complete anything, they start
and then they leave us midway. You cannot do anything,
they will give excuse about some problem with regard to
technology. We need to have cadastral mapping linked
to GIS, geo referencing. The points, mapped by Survey of
India, with reference to states, most of them are lost. In
Haryana, 50 % of the points are lost, people in the satellite
institutes need to identify. It is not difficult but lot of hardwork is required to be put in. You need to urgently find
those Survey of India points, reconstruct them with the
help of technology and satellite, etc., link them all and
then create secondary points, tertiary points, further
on, link them to GIS, so you have a complete integrated
land records management system. Then the problems
will be resolved, there won’t be law and order problems,
litigation. The scientific way of doing geo referencing
will reduce the margin of error from the textual records,
by 1% to 7%. In Haryana, we have done it in the tehsil
of Manesar, errors were reduced from 7% to 0.1%. The
public and the government will get phenomenal benefit.
We will be able to identify encroachers, we have not been
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able to do it manually. But Government has to take this
as a priority, now the prioritization is not happening,
bureaucrats and politicians, they don’t have time for it.
It requires a lot of detailing, you need to post officers
dedicated to this project. More often, the Director of
Land Records it is an additional charge, it’s a punishment
posting. The time has come for setting up an authority
with regard to land records management. In the district,
it should be an officer who is fairly senior and he should
not be given any other work. We have to agree that the
governments have not taken the issue of land records
management seriously.
The way forward is obviously conclusive land titling.
A lot of people say it is not possible in countries like
India, but I think we need to move towards it if we want
to become an important country for foreign direct
investment (FDI). Even with all these problems, we are
attracting the maximum FDI in the world. I was told, we
have surpassed China, we are clocking something like
50 billion dollars annually in terms of FDI. We can create
better investment climate for the country, if we move
towards conclusive titling. What is conclusive titling, I
think all of you would know, but I would briefly sum it up,
it is a single window, a single agency which will handle
all the land records, corrections, dispute resolution. Now
you have multiple levels, Tehsildar, Patwari, Kanugo,
SDM,Collector, Commissioner, and the civil courts. This is
a single window which will redress all the land records
management issues, and, it is based on what is called the
mirror principle-what you see with regards to records is
what you get at the ground level, there is no mismatch.
It is also based on another principle, called the curtain
principle, at any given point of time, there is true depiction
of ownership and whose responsibility would that be,
that would be the responsibility of the authority which is
called the conclusive titling authority. Now, it will be the
responsibility of this authority to insure against a loss to
any individual or private person, indemnify for the loss.
Let us say the government declares ‘x’ to be the owner
of a particular piece of land, then due to some reasonmistake of the government itself, that person is declared
not to be the owner, he would be compensated by the
government. I think this is a very significant principle, it is
a part of the Conclusive Titling Bill of 2010.
RFCTLARR Conference 2018
The other aspect is title insurance. There is going to be a
land titling tribunal, this tribunal will replace the courts,
up to the High Court level. This tribunal will hear all the
appeals and dispose them off, this tribunal would have
the entire information and it’s trained in this particular
work, therefore, they are better than civil courts. Today,
civil courts are not trained, I have judges coming to me
and telling me, “can you give us a talk about land records,
it is very complex”, but they are passing judgments.
Once the civil courts decide a case, revenue official is
supposed to implement it. I have judges coming to me
and asking me,“what is this, jumla, musarka, malkan etc.?”
The setting up of a specialized tribunal will be a very
positive development.
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the cases in various courts, and, most of them are linked
to land records. So, if you have conclusive titling, you have
a tribunal, if you have computerization of land records,
I think, litigation will significantly come down. It will
increase the value of the property, it also expedites LA,
there is no confusion with regard to rates, so the process
of LA will become shorter and quicker. I will end now. I
thank Preeti and other organizers who have given me
this opportunity to interact with you all. Thank you.
Mr Arun Kumar: Thank you very much Dr Suresh. It was
a very thought provoking talk as to how the difficulties
can be resolved at the ground level. Of course, there are
various levels of maintenance of land records across
the states.
What else does this Bill entail? Valuation, today we have
complex and bizarre methods of valuation. I am the
Chairman of the Valuation Committee, it does not go on a
scientific principle, it is based on registrations, it is based
on Collectors’ rates. There is a Collectors’ rate, which is the
official rate of the government, then there is the market
rate, which is something called black-white, it is very
complex. You cannot have two rates, I think, Evaluation
Bill will do away with this.
There will be scientific evaluation of a property, at any
point of time, anybody can know the valuation of a
particular property, which can be placed in a public
domain. Foreign investors cannot be duped, Indian
and domestic investors cannot be duped. Today, in
the absence of this valuation, the rates are bizzare,
somebody is selling for Rs 2 crore an acre somewhere,
then suddenly, somebody, says Rs 5 crore. So, there is
no method of valuation, it is whimsical and chaotic.
Scientific valuation in the public domain will go a long
way in ameliorating the problems of the common man,
investors, it will improve governance. Conclusive titling,
proper management, computerization of land records
will actually improve governance. One of the significant
aspects of governance, according to me, is land-records
management. I think, police and revenue are two most
important departments of the government. I can’t
speak for the police, but, for revenue department I can
say, in spite of being the most significant, it is often the
most chaotic government department. I was told that
litigation against the government amounts to 70% of all
MR ARUN KUMAR,
Former Secretary, Ministry of Mines
As far as I am concerned, I think, all that I had wanted
to say has already been said. However, coming from the
mines background, we face a lot of problems in getting
land, and, I notice in the LA Act, 2013, there are stricter
provisions for Schedule V and tribal areas. Compounded
with LA is one issue, in mines scenario it has basically
become purchase, because the road to acquisition is
very difficult, but the forest and the environment issues
also impinge on land and there is a whole plethora of
RFCTLARR Conference 2018
requirements for obtaining environment clearance and
forest clearance. I have raised this issue even earlier, these
processes are carried out in a sequence, like you have
an SIA for LA, you have a hearing for environment and
for forest land, I think, for the ease of doing business,
these should be collapsed, so an entrepreneur doesn’t
have to keep going to various authorities and seeking
multiple kinds of consent. At times, there is an element
of blackmail, because of increasing awareness and
literacy, people understand what is there for the project
proponent, we should guard against this, otherwise, our
progress would be hampered. Of course, you have to
balance the public good versus the landowner or the
right-holder who needs to be compensated. We have had
a lot of discussion, now I would leave the floor open for
observations, comments, and questions. We request you
to be very specific, if possible, please indicate the panellist
who you would like to respond to your questions.
Q&A Session
Dr Nirmala Buch: I have a few points, they are more
of observations and comments about what is the reality.
I was very disturbed when I heard Mr Suresh, because,
I have been in Government for more than a quarterof-a-century. Even I see have been objective about the
policies of the government and they are not as bad as
you say, so please don’t generalize, say about Haryana.
You have not seen other states, lots of work has been
done, lot of computerization has taken place, Ministry of
Road Development funded them, for instance, Karnataka
and Madhya Pradesh, where, as a farmer, I can see my
land records on the internet, that is the situation. I can
see the map in Google, along with the records. The new
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authorities will not solve problems, they will only create
problems. Land records have been prepared, I don’t say
that they are hundred percent correct but a lot of work
has been done. As a farmer I have a real Pustika, which
the banks will accept as a document of ownership. I have
khasra and khatauni, B1 and B2. Farmers know what they
are, they don’t have to learn Urdu or any other language,
even women know what these documents are. So, let us
not underestimate our farmers, let us not underestimate
the work that has been done, lot of work has been done in
land records, things are not as bad everywhere, I cannot
guarantee they are good everywhere. I know Haryana
has a very different system, for instance, when we did a
review of the criminal justice system in Haryana, instead
of FIR, wo kehte hain, “kagaz ayaa taar mein lagaya”(they
say, paper was received, it was placed in taar file)that
means no FIR, toh woh system baaki jageh nahi hota,
(that system is not prevalent at other places).Very simply,
please don’t generalize about all the states, things are not
as bad, and we don’t have to declare that so and so is the
owner, the document show who is the owner.
Secondly, and this is about the SIA, that sharecroppers
bhaag jatey hain, woh bhaag nahin jatey hain unka record
hota hai, (run away, they don’t run away, their records
are maintained). Some states have enacted land leasing
law based on the suggestions of NITI Aayog, for instance,
Madhya Pradesh is one state which has done it. Earlier,
there were informal leases everywhere, which were
honoured by all the parties. Now, a law has been passed
whereby you can enter into a written agreement for five
years. The documents carry all the details etc. I suppose
other states will also probably frame the law.
Then, there is the point that people should be involved,
I think, if systematic work has been done, pre-SIA, before
the project comes, a lot of details are collected. It will help
a lot. Basically I wanted to clarify this, I was very upset
when you said that throughout the country things are
bad, they are not as bad everywhere. Thank You
Dr D Suresh: First, let me accept the scenario as described
by ma’am. A lot of good work has been done, a lot of
good work has been done in Haryana, as well. It is not that
Haryana is not technology savvy, a lot of good work has
been done and we are moving forward. But the problem is
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that we are hyper-sensitive to criticism in the government,
this is a major problem. I think, accepting criticism is a
good thing, it is a way of looking at things in a productive
manner, a lot of good work happens in government.
But let us also understand that a lot of problems are
on account of government functioning, I say that as a
bureaucrat. I mean, ma’am has got more experience, much
more than me, but, with 25 years of experience, I can say
that a lot of problems arise because of the incomplete
nature of projects.
You start a good work and you don’t complete it, the
common man does not get the benefit. You may have
records available on net without digital signatures maybe,
it is of no value, those records are not linked to the banks,
not linked to the courts. My anxiety and criticism stems
from the fact that we need to move forward fast, we can’t
have projects lingering for about three decades and we
can’t be patting ourselves on the back. To say that we are
doing a good work, we need to complete it, end to end.
The time has come for this country, time has come for
governments to say, so and so is the owner. Do we need to
wait 50 years to say who is the owner? I will recount one
instance, in Gual Pahari, Gurugram, government officials
were deciding the fate of Rs 3000 crore property, some in
favour of private people, some in favour of government.
This has created a mess, primarily because, even now,
the civil courts have to look at fifty-year old records to
determine the owner. This is what we need to address,
nobody should look at fifty years of land records, that is
why we need to have conclusive titling. The authority will
examine the records for hundred years, fifty years and
then say, so and so is the owner. Why should the common
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man do it, it is the responsibility of the government.
If we keep praising these existing systems, we will go
nowhere. Let us remember that the objective of land
records management was different when the Todarmal
system of recordkeeping was introduced in northern
India in the 16th century. It was land revenue, because,
you know, land was so cheap, land was not giving
income. Today, land is the most important component
of investment, so, you need to certify who is the owner
and that certification has to be done by government
authorities, by the conclusive titling tribunals. Farmers
will understand kasra, katauni, kevat, etc., why should
only farmers, everybody should understand, common
man should understand, somebody coming from abroad,
FDI investor should understand. Why should the bighe,
beeswe in different districts be different, what is beegha
and beeswa in Gurugram will be different in kanal. Why
don’t you get into yards, metric system, centimeters,
inches, what the common man can understand. This is
what I am saying, governments have done good work,
let us not be paranoid with criticism, let us not applaud
ourselves continuously, let us be more open to new ways
of thinking.
Dr Nirmala Buch: I was Secretary, Rural Development,
25 years ago. What I have said is the perception as a
common citizen, as a common farmer. You said about
bigha, beeswa, beegha beeswa log bolte hain sarkari
record mein hectare aur acre he hai, usme beegha biswa
records mein nahi hota, decimal system has been accepted,
toh wahi kai jagah mein farak hai,(people say beeghe,
biswa, but in government records it is hectare and acre,
beeghe, biswa is not in records, the decimal system has
been accepted, that may be different at some places). Let
us not generalize, let us see what work has not been done.
Let us face the fact that this work has been done, not
by me, I was there in 1993, but speaking of 2018, bahut
jageh kaam hua hai logon ko malum hai kisse karna hai,
kaise registration hota hai, registration ki kya value hai, uske
upar se mutation hota hain, uske upar se, bank records hota
hai, bank accept karta hai,(work has been done at a lot of
places, people know who has to work, how registration
is done, what is the value of registration, beyond that is
mutation, then there are bank records, bank accepts the
documents). I just wanted to clarify.
RFCTLARR Conference 2018
Dr D Suresh: But we should ask the experience of a
common man.
Dr Nirmala Buch: I am speaking as a common man.
Dr D Suresh: You are a Secretary, your documents would
be registered, I think, on time.
Mr Arun Kumar: You see, ma’am, the point is that there
are different levels of record keeping and we need to
appreciate that. I come from the state of Assam, though
I am being rather harsh on my parent state, our records
are in a mess, compared to Karnataka. Just a small story,
when I was the Revenue Secretary, for a short period of
time, we had a concept called field mutation, which is a
quick process. Unfortunately, the system had gone into
disuse in our state, I insisted that we should have field
mutations, we did a few lakhs and I was very proud of
it. Then I told my counterpart in Karnataka about what
we had done. And he said, ”we don’t need it”, I asked,
“why” and he said, ”everything is up-to-date”. The limited
point is, there are a lot of variations and a lot of work
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remains to be done in various states, we continuously
need to improve systems. Many of our states have very
outdated revenue courts and they need to certainly step
up and clear the web which has been created. You have
a law then you have a circular, then you have another
circular, no one consolidates and brings out a clean bit of
legislation, just because it is a lot of hard-work.
Dr Abhijit Guha: My question is not directed to any one
of you, this is for record at TERI, because TERI wants to
pick up threads of discussion from here, and send it to
the government, as far as my understanding goes about
the conference. My point is that a new law requires a
new attitude. And the way forward doesn’t mean that
you amend the Act continuously, you also need to have a
kind of research back up for this kind of Act. Let me give
a very concrete example, we talk about compensation,
we talk about enhancement of compensation, but
do we really know what the land losers do with the
compensation? How do they utilize the compensation
money? The government, virtually, has no database
RFCTLARR Conference 2018
on the utilization of compensation money. I have done
some anthropological research and I have found that
after getting huge amount of compensation people just
spend it. I have some field experience in Gurugram, one
man told me that he bought a Pajero car for his son-inlaw, after getting the compensation.
The point is, if you look at the utilization of compensation
money, interesting information comes up. For instance,
in Odisha, data from Ringali dam has shown that,
after receiving compensation money, the age of
marriage of daughters in a region has declined. This is
because they had to pay large dowry after getting the
compensation. In my research I have found that most
of the compensation money is utilized by the farmers
for simple domestic consumption. A lot of research has
to be done, the government has to keep track, it is not
enough to give compensation. The Walter Foundation
has found, again, in Odisha that people were smoking
cigarettes with hundred rupee note of the compensation
money. So, utilization of compensation money should be
researched and there should be provisions, either, in the
Manuals or in the Rules, as part of this Law, about how the
compensation money has to be utilized. It is not enough
that we have given such an amount as the compensation.
Secondly, I have seen through my field visits that the
Archaeological Department has acquired hundreds,
sometimes, thousands of acres of land, and much of this
land is common property resources. This Law should
have a provision that looks at what the Archaeological
Department is doing with huge amounts of land already
acquired. In Khajuraho, you will see that hundreds of acres
of lands have been acquired and people are debarred
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from entering those sites. But they are not being utilized
by the Archaeological Department, so, for how many
years will it occupy common property resources and say
that it will be utilized sometime.
Thirdly, Mr Jairam Ramesh had just said that the new Law
not only specifies the amount of land to be acquired, but
also the kind of land which can be acquired for a project. I
have studied the Gazette Notification, you only learn that
such amounts of land have to be acquired but it does
not say anything about the quality of that land, was it a
mono-crop land, was it a common property resource. My
query is, I don’t know if anyone in this House would like
to enlighten me, has any Gazette Notification mentioned
the nature of land that is being acquired. Thank you.
Person 3: I want to take the discussion to SIA which was
the core topic for this session. Because of problems with
revenue records, social impact assessment is required.
Nobody can deny that there are complex issues with
land records. So, SIA was thought of resolving these
issues for the project. My question is why are states not
going for SIA, what are the reasons, one, do we have the
capacity to do SIA, whether SIA is required for each and
every project? We need to discuss along these lines so
that this session can bring some results. Why are state
government doing away with SIAs, why don’t they want
SIA, why proponent don’t want SIA?
Mr Arun Kumar: I think Dr Samanta would like to
respond. As far as I can understand, the moment you
have an SIA, you create a body which, sometimes, has
an interest contrary to the acquisition. I am not saying
whether the interest is legitimate or illegitimate and,
to that extent, sometimes it becomes more difficult to
counter such a body. If we had SIA, let us say, for Narmada
or Sardar Sarovar, there would have been much more
organized and strong opposition. Those laws were harsh,
perhaps, that is the reason why governments would try
and do away with SIAs. The other point is, as I said, the
need to have a balance between the requirement of the
project and the interest of the people there. Overall, we
are a democracy. I think SIA is a good process, if it leads
to identification of people who are the landholders,
stakeholders, we would need to face it fairly, squarely and
transparently. If it is in national interest, State must have
RFCTLARR Conference 2018
the right to over-rule those objections, but over-ruling
should always be a last resort.
Dr Debabrata Samanta: Just to add one point, the
problem is with the Act itself, you do SIA at Section-4,
and cut- off date for land value is Section-11, which is 1
year, and during this time a lot of transactions are taking
place, a lot of affected families are created. That is the
core issue why state governments are opposing SIA,
because each affected family is entitled to R&R. So, in one
project, from 20 household it is becoming 200. The cost
of land acquisition is coming out to be Rs 5 crore–6 crore,
per hectare, which is very costly, it is coming out to be
32%–33% of the project cost. This is one of the core issue
that needs to be addressed immediately, if we want to do
SIA and resolve the issue of tenancies, otherwise, we will
continue discussing this for another 20 years.
Mr Arun Kumar: Very well said. As I said, we need to
create balance, if you look at the 1894 Act, it was a very
unbalanced Act. As Mr Jairam Ramesh said, all the political
parties agreed to make a new law. Now the pendulum
has swung to the other extreme. Perhaps, we have an Act
today that is too liberal. We need to come back to the
middle. But, we would need to have much more study
and material to take a call.
Dr D Suresh: We also need to enhance the capacity for
doing SIA.
Mr Arun Kumar: Yes, yes, capacity is very important.
Dr D Suresh: I would also like to say that there is a lot
of scope and, maybe, a lot of work for non-governmental
organization in SIA, who are trained and very focused in
this kind of work, apart from government.
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Mr Arun Kumar: Capacity is very important because I
was looking at some figures on acquisition, post 2013,
and surprisingly, UP and Punjab have done a much better
job, whereas, it is experienced in central government, by
and large, that the southern and the western states do a
better job of implementation. The reason is that they have
created capacity, but this information is anecdotal, that
is why we need documentation. Dr Samanta from Bihar
was also lamenting about capacity, so when you have a
law which requires a lot of consultation, a lot of analysis in
the public domain, you need capacity to be able to meet
the demands of the law, which, we, unfortunately, lack. In
India we are good in theory but poor in implementation.
Dr Malvika Pal, Associate Professor of Law and Legal
Studies, Ambedkar University, Delhi: My question is to
Dr. Suresh. I am very happy that you raised a very important
aspect regarding the valuation committee, and my
question is directed to that. I have been working on court
cases on LA, particularly, because I have an economics
background. I work on valuation and we have seen that the
method of valuation regarding compensation changes
from the trial court to the high court to the Supreme
Court. They are using different methods to give different
kind of valuation. Therefore, your statement that there
is a collector rate and there is a market rate, that is very
relevant. Essentially, the entire debate on this 2013 Act is
also regarding the enhancement of compensation and, if
you look at the number of cases under litigation, the issue
is compensation. So, if the valuation of land is the most
important issue, why is it that the government has not
addressed it. Of course, the suggestion for an evaluation
committee is very well taken, of course, it needs to be
done. But I wonder if it is a strategic thing on part of the
government to create an uncertainty so that rent-seeking
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is enhanced by the process. There are many stakeholders,
you know, they would like to utilize the uncertainties
involved in it, so, are there existing reports that we don’t
know about, or is it a plan of the government to clarify
this, even before the evaluation committee, because that
would take a long time? Thank you.
Dr D Suresh: I agree with most of your observation, and
I don’t want to sound like the critic of the government.
It is not deliberate, it is a combination of lack of capacity
and non- availability of true values in the real estate and
land related transactions. As far as the government is
concerned, the official rate is the collector rate, and every
year the district collector declares the collector rate for
different tehsils and different areas within the city, within
the villages. That exercise is done annually, with the help
of tehsildars and patwaris. The question is whether that
is the market rate? In some cases, yes, in most cases, it is
not. Therefore, when it comes to compensation, when
government wants to compensate the farmers, they
will never accept the collector rate, they will say that the
market rate is much more.
Then, what happens is that the government constitutes
various standing committees, one of the standing
committees in my Division, I am the chairman of that,
we take into consideration the market rate, the market
information and registered value of particular properties
over a period of time. We come to some kind of, so called
market rate, which is different from the official collector
rate. All this is done in a manner, which, according to me,
is not scientific. We need to improve and we need to say
either that everything that is going on is fine or we need
to recommend or move towards what should be done. In
that context I said that we need to pass the Land Titling
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Bill. There is a provision for land valuation, which has to be
done in a scientific manner and that needs to be frozen.
The titling authority is provided with a lot of support
system, from the market or consortium, to determine the
market rate that is in the public domain and is available
to people. This leaves no room for people to go to courts
and to agitate and to sit on dharna, etc. In that context I
have been a little critical, my intention is not to criticize
what has already been achieved in the government,
including Haryana. Sometimes, we need to look at things
critically, otherwise, we will not be able to move towards
the solution. I hope I have answered your question.
Mr Arun Kumar: Just to respond to your question, the
government notifies the circle rate, ok, that serves as
the base rate and then leaves it to the wisdom of the
committee to consider the market rate. Whether it can be
very scientific, is a big question mark, because if you go
to Gurgaon, within the same 1 square km area, if you are
adjacent to a 60 metre road, land rate is different, if you
are adjacent to a hundred metre road, the rate is different,
if you are in an office block, the rate is different. Therefore,
some amount of discretion, not discretion really, an
application of mind will have to be made, because, if you
look at a scenario where the government notifies the
rate of every square km of land, that exercise will become
gigantic. So, the circle rate is the base rate, after that, it
is the revenue intelligence, market intelligence that
comes before the committee and then they decide the
rate, which is a fair rate. My experience has always been
that the government is always understaffed, amongst the
people who are not from the government, this would be
sacrilegious. Understaffed in crucial positions, you may
be having, let us say, ten thousand people, maintaining
a road length but when you want one Tehsildar for rate
fixation you will not get him. Basically, it is the matter
of capacity with the government, and the government
needs to right size itself.
Dr D Suresh: Sir, let us say now there are different rates,
closer to the road behind, front etc., in addition to the
subjectivity, the rate at which the purchaser is purchasing
a land is depending on the rate at which the seller wants
to sell. Now, if it is valued and that is in the public domain,
the subjectivity of the authority would be reduced and
the subjectivity of the seller or the prerogative of the
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seller to sell at a particular rate would also come down.
The rates would be available for people to see, for people
to know. From that point of view, valuation is a very
important thing, besides, the government is actually
losing a lot of revenue on stamp duty. The market rate
maybe, say Rs 100, and the collector rate may be, say
Rs 50, so government is losing stamp duty on that Rs 50.
Dr K Ratnabali, Assistant Professor, Faculty of
Law, Delhi University: My observation is directed to
Dr Samanta. When we talk about the SIA, we are generally
focusing on the social and the economic aspect of the
lives of people who are affected or are going to be
affected, many a times, we find that displacement is done
in tribal areas, particularly, vulnerable tribal group. For
them, land has much more than social and economic
significance, land is, in fact, a cultural and religious base
for tribals also, so the sacred places, and the culturally
important places that are in those land, many a time we
ignore that, when we do assessment of the land which is
to be acquired. That leads to a lot of rebellion from that
community and you had also mentioned that if you try to
change the design later on, it leads to cost-over-run, it is
risky. My suggestion is, just as we do land survey, can’t we
map these sacred and religious places of the tribals, so
we know beforehand where it is situated, so that it can be
taken into account whenever a design is made.
Dr Debrabata Samanta: Should I respond? When we
conduct some SIA, definitely we take into account
whether there are any temples or religious places. Ma’am,
what you suggested that is my suggestion also. We need
to consult the community much before the designing of
project, so that all the issues which create conflict can be
mitigated beforehand.
Dr Ratnabali: Generally, we try to look for man-made
structures, rather than the naturally occurring, sacred
spaces, it may be a grove, it may be a boulder, may be a
river, anything.
Dr Debrabata Samanta: I have not come across them
because Bihar has very less tribal population left now.
Whatever I have shared, is my field experiences here.
Dr Ratnabali: Particularly, I would like to make this
observation in the context of Vedanta case where the
Dongria-Kond tribe had claimed that the Niyamgiri hill,
where the bauxite mining had to be done, is their God.
The Supreme Court had also given a decision in their
favour, regarding the protection of their cultural rights.
Mr Arun Kumar: On mapping, if you do that exercise
for the country as a whole, it will become a humungous
exercise. Also, beliefs change, so, I think, we would have to
go project wise.
Dr Ratnabali: If we can just focus on the primitive tribal
groups only.
Mr Arun Kumar: If there is no requirement there is no
point.
Mr Madhusudhan: As a practitioner, I work on social
assessment and land acquisition issues in the context of
this Act. Till today, we are struggling to get revenue maps
from the patwaris, it’s a hell of a job. It does not take less
than ten days to get one map of a village. And, if I have
a 100km road, imagine the time taken, this is one major
issue which is not being addressed, we are struggling
across country. I have worked in all states of India,
everywhere we have the same problem, very few can give
me something but it is not complete. The second issue is
capacity building. We are not getting people to do SIA,
I can have an NGO, I can have an academic institution
but they don’t have an understanding of the ground
level, community level issues, how to mobilize, they
don’t understand the requirements of the Act at all. We
need to have some process where we can have capacity
building across the country. Even the National Institute of
Rural Development, Hyderabad tried to do this for all the
Commissioners, the SDMS and SDOs, across the country,
but the response has been lack lustre. They don’t come
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for the training program, the Principle Secretary has to
give the order for them to come and attend. So, these are
the problems we are facing on the ground.
Then, like Dr. Samanta said about the design, the design
activity should not start before the social impact or the
environmental issues are considered, because, then you
will know where you have to actually put your project.
When the project is already designed we have problems
in changing the design because of the financial issues. So,
this should be looked at as a primary activity even before
getting into the economics of it.
Mr Aiban Swer, Meghalaya Institute of Governance :
Good afternoon sir. My Institute has been conducting SIA
in Meghalaya since the last few years. I want to draw your
attention towards the statement made by Jairam Ramesh.
He said that we should look at who is impacted by LA,
the first order, second order losers and compensation
should be provided to livelihood losers at same rate as
landowners. I wish to bring your attention to a situation
where, we have done SIA on an area, which is bordering
between Assam, Meghalaya, and Bangladesh, it’s a border
area, for entry and exit- facilitation centre. Now, while the
landowners are Garo tribals, the others are people who
have migrated either from Bangladesh or from Assam,
because, it is next to the river Brahmaputra. Whenever
the river goes down, they will go down, whenever the
river comes up, they will climb up to these hills and live
there. When we conducted the SIA for this area, most
of the people who were squatters, were not willing to
come to the public hearing, they were not willing to
answer the questions because they felt they were not
the owners, they were just people who migrated within
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the border areas. But, during the survey we found that
quite a number of families were residents of this area,
now, during the public hearing, the real owners, who are
the Nyokhamas would not consider them to be eligible
for any form of compensation, since they were only
squatters. This is in contrast to what the honourable MP,
panel members said that landless people should also be
provided compensation at the same rate as landowners.
Please clarify this.
Dr D Suresh: On this point I don’t agree with you, that
every encroacher needs to be compensated as though
he is an owner, I think, that wouldn’t be the right thing
to do. In Haryana we have seen a number of cases where
people have encroached on government land, they are
not very poor people, rich people have encroached, so I
think the anxiety of the Minister was that very often the
authorities tend to undermine the position of, let us say
a very poor encroacher who is living there as a squatter,
for fifty years. He is staying there for a very long time
because he is poor, he has no alternative space, those
squatters need to be looked at with a more sensitive
angle, maybe, the government has a responsibility to
look at them in a different way, in view of Supreme
Court judgments etc., that you need to compensate
them, you need to rehabilitate them. From that point
of view, those squatters and those encroachers need to
be differentiated from unscrupulous elements who are
encroaching on government land, you don’t need to be
there, but you are there, for real estate purposes and all.
Very often it happens in Faridabad and Gurgaon.
Dr Samir Rai, Social Development Specialist: My
question is for Dr. Samanta, as you are heading one of the
state SIA units. Ma’am had a question about the sacred
groves and cultural thought process, belief systems
of the tribals. Specifically, do you, in your SIA, cover the
man-nature relationship because that is a very important
thing. Generally, in SIA, we tend to count the number
of temples, mosques and structures, we never tend to
take into account the man-nature relationship, have you
taken it into consideration somewhere, it’s not specific to
the tribals, it is everywhere.
Dr Debrabata Samanta:Every parcel of land has definitely
an emotional attachment, it is not only religious, that is
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why we face so much resistance, even the compensation
amount cannot compensate them. Coming to your
point, we also feel that all these dimensions needs to
be incorporated, need to be taken into account. We
also need to understand, in your language, the mannature relationship.
Dr Samir Rai: Sir, it is not my language, it is part of the
field training for anthropologist, learning and use of the
native language and understanding of the man-nature
relationships, I mean even if you go to urban sector,
kiska aap land lete hain, kisi gaun mein, kisi seher mein, kisi
mohaale mein, kahin specific ek jagah hoti hai jahan ki ek
aadmi aapko falane dukan pe ya uss jageh pe hi milega,
aap uss dukan ko tod dete hain, uss admi ki social standing
khatam hojati hai, jab ki uski dukan nahi hai, he sits there, for
four hours,gaun mein, neem ke ped ke chabutarey mein, ek
dadaji roz miltey hain, agar woh neem ke ped ka chabutara
toot jata hai toh dadaji, ki social standing khatam ho jati
hai.(When you take someone’s land in some village, in
some city, in some colony, there is some specific place
where one person will be found, say, only at a particular
shop, when you break that shop, the man loses his social
standing, he sits there for four hours. In a village, an old
man can always be met, on a sit-out near a neem tree,
if the sit-out area is destroyed, the old man loses all his
social standing).
Dr Debabrata Samanta: It is important to capture the
perceived loss through the feedback and try to understand
the losses that they may face if the land gets acquired.
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Mr Asim Chaudhury: My question is for Mr Samanta.
After the SDGs have come, post, Paris Conference and
India is a signatory to it, most of the SIAs have to be
linked to SDGs. Unfortunately, at many places it is not
happening. Whether an audit or some kind of a study has
been done to see whether SIA is matching with the SDGs?
My submission is, in SIA study, you must first examine
whether you are falling in the whole framework of SDGs.
Next, in my experience of 20–30 years, I have seen that
most of the states have large tracts of vacant land. I have
experience in the oil sector and the highway sector. The
life of oil wells is twenty years maximum, and after the
oil well is abandoned the land lies vacant. When land is
being requisitioned for ‘x’ purpose, it should, first, be set
out from the land which is lying vacant. In most of the
states, even, Gujarat, Maharashtra, large tracts are lying
vacant, so, first, it should be distributed to the villagers, to
the Gram Sabha, it can be utilized for multi-crop farming
or mono-crop, second, comes the public purpose. Thank
you very much.
Mr Arun Kumar: I think that’s a good suggestion, SDGs
could certainly form the minimum basic requirements.
All the panellists have made fruitful contribution. Dr.
Samanta highlighted the problems, Dr Suresh rightly
pointed out the requirement for the updation of land
records. I think we should remember it is a new Law.
We must remember that it is a long journey from 1894
to 2013. We are in the process of learning, we need to
document these experiences, so that we have a base for
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KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY
DR K P KRISHNAN,
SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF SKILL
DEVELOPMENT AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP,
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
I am happy to be here to talk on land issues in general and on
LA matters, in particular. I must however start with a caveat,
one, I formally dealt with this issue till Dec 2016, so, I maybe,
somewhat, dated on some of the nuances and details. Two,
I have not been able to familiarize myself with what has
been said till now, perhaps some part of what I say may have
been covered, maybe repetitive. But, I plan to situate the LA
question and the Act and the Ordinances and the Executive
Order that followed it in a much larger context of land issues
in India and land markets in particular.
discussion and to improve on the existing legislation.
Thank you very much for all your co-operation, we will be
proceeding for lunch.
Joyita Ghose: I would like to thank all the speakers
and Mr Arun Kumar also, for moderating the session so
well, and the members of the audience for sharing their
perspectives with us.
Day 2, Session IV, ‘Rehabilitation of PAFs:
Experience of Livelihood Restoration’
Joyita Ghose: Welcome back to the concluding session
of the two day national conference. The topic of this
session is the rehabilitation of Project-Affected-Families,
the experience of livelihood restoration. The key note
address for this session will be delivered by Dr. K.P
Krishnan, currently the Secretary in the Ministry of Skill
Development and Entrepreneurship. Previously, he has
held key decision making position in the Ministry of
Rural Development, soon after the enactment of the
2013 LA Act. I now request Sir, to please deliver the
keynote address.
Now, let me start with the macro-picture of land in India,
again, perhaps something a lot of you are very familiar
with. In terms of the broad numbers, India has close to
three- thirty million hectares, of which, roughly 50%
is inhospitable. So, effectively, half of what India has,
is not easily usable and, of the land that is available for
use, the last formal data on this subject indicates that
agriculture accounts for 152 million hectares, which is
just a little less than 50%, close to 46%-47% of India’s
land resources. We need to keep in mind that this 46%
of land resources produces, approximately, 14%–16% of
India’s GDP. So, if you are talking about land efficiency
we need to keep this in mind. Likewise, the numbers on
industry and urban, and these are approximate because
these haven’t been computed very scientifically by the
statistical organizations, but the best estimates of the
experts say that approximately one per cent is industry
use, could be between 1 and 1.5 and about 2% to 4% are
for urban use. Collectively, these contribute two-thirds
of India’s GDP, 68% of India’s GDP. Likewise, 1 hectare of
agricultural land, in terms of employment, supports five
and a half persons, on an average, and the other two
sectors and, again these are broad averages, I have a
purpose in making these points, the industrial and urban
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sector supports a little over 32 people. This macro-picture
needs to be kept in mind as a background to whatever
we are discussing. India will continue to need a lot more
land for industries and for urban growth. Can all of these
come only from non-fertile or non-agricultural land? The
macro answer is no, it cannot, it needs to come from what
is currently classified, as land under agricultural use.
And, if the entire population of India were to be housed
in urban areas only, just a hypothetical exercise, and, if,
everyone in India was to work in industry or services
sector, the secondary or tertiary sector, the incremental
land requirement for this completely crazy but seismic
shift would be 25 million hectares. So, in the macropicture, if all of India were to become urban, if all of India
were to be employed only in industry and services, we
require 25 million hectares more, approximately, 16-17%
of the land presently under agricultural use. Even with
this sort of seismic shift, can we produce enough food
on our lands to feed all of us, the answer is a resounding
yes, and this is not even based on an estimates of a huge
increase in productivity. The FAO says, on an average, the
yield of rice in India can increase by 88% and in the case
of wheat, 56% to be exact. This is still the potential that
India needs to harness. Given that India witnessed a six
fold increase in the wheat yield from 1950–2013, the kind
of FAO projected-growth rate in rice and wheat yield are
well within the realm of imagination.The reason for taking
an audience, which need not be bothered with all this
data, is to make the simple point that, for a large number
of Indians to prosper, and for a distribution of prosperity,
land presently used for agriculture needs to be diverted
and made available for industry and urbanization. This is
at a macro-level, a conclusion which is inescapable, and
even an economists like Amartya Sen, and one would
expect a contrary view, given what is typically ascribed
to Amartya Sen, has said that prohibiting the use of
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agricultural land for industries is clearly self-defeating.
The question that needs to be dealt with is, how does one
handle the consequences of this huge shift of land use,
and, what will often turn out to be, involuntary LA. I have
given you a macro picture where the case for much larger
use of agricultural land in industry and urban sector is a
near compulsion. At the micro level, this is a very sobering
picture, on the per capita basis. India was land scarce,
relative to a majority of countries as far back as 1960,
and there is a very interesting UNDP graph, typically in
all their reports, which shows a straight line drawn at 45
degree, showing land density per people and, by 2050,
the expectation is that the land per population ratio
will decline four-fold. As it is, India is a very land scarce
country in terms of per capita land, and, at that point in
time, other than Bangladesh, Mauritius and Netherlands,
there will be no other country which, on a per capita
basis, has less land than India.
In fact, the comparisons that we always make with China
which, I think would be meaningless, by 2050, China will
have four times land per capita more than India, Brazil,
another country with which we often compare ourselves,
will have twenty times more land per capita, so and this
problem, if you were to classify this as a problem, will
only get aggravated with a growing India. So, I think the
whole LA exercise, if I were to pose it as a problem in
economics, is a challenge that the public policy needs to
address. Clearly, the macro-picture tells us that large scale
shift of land use which would eventually mean a shift of
ownership is a necessity, versus, a situation where at a per
capita level, a land scarce country will become even more
land scarce as we go along.
Constitutionally, land is entirely a state subject, pure land,
land records, etc., whereas acquisition and requisitioning
of property is Entry number 42 in the Concurrent List, and
there are clear provisions in the Constitution in terms of
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what happens when a law is made by the Union on a
subject in the Concurrent List and there are either existing
laws on the subject in a state or, later, a law is passed by
a state. The general provision is the Union Law ordinarily
prevails, unless the state law, in case of a repugnancy with
the Central Law, is specifically assented to by the President
of India, which is the formal way of stating that the Union
Home Ministry needs to give assent to the repugnant
legislation. One serious constraint of all the factors of
production in India, clearly, if you look at the standard
four-fold - land, labour, capital, entrepreneurship, land is
clearly one of the binding factors, and my broad sense is,
in the case of capital, we have a reasonably functioning
market in India, which, at the margin may misallocate
but, on an average, the market for capital seems to be
working well. The market for labour is a very regulated
market and it is constrained by a lot of legislations. But
at least at the higher levels of compensation, levels
that are not controlled based on wage-levels, there is a
reasonably well functioning labour market, numerically
small, significant in terms of the value of the market. In
the case of land, clearly there is a serious question mark
on whether we have a well- functioning liquid set of
land markets because, if there were to be a set of wellfunctioning land markets, a lot of the pain of LA would
be taken away by the market. Because, in the market a lot
of these transactions would be voluntary, and, given the
levels of literacy, you may question on whether these are
all necessarily very well informed, but a well- functioning
market will have incentive for the owners of the land to
figure out the ways in which the market can function in
a reasonably liquid way. Now the absence of market is a
point that we need to keep in mind. Why is there such a
disproportionate public policy attention to the question
of involuntary LA? If you look at countries at our stages
of development, you don’t see this kind of an emphasis,
on a law backed involuntary forced acquisition of land,
because, in most of these countries, for a variety of
reasons, the land market seems to be functioning much
better than the Indian land market.
One more set of statistical data on the importance of
land, thereafter, I will come to current issues in land
acquisition. The 70th round of NSSO, the National Sample
Survey Organization, which looked at key indicators of
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debts and investments in India, found in rural areas, in
2013, that land and building constitutes 73% and 21%
respectively, of the total value of assets. Around 73% of
assets of rural India, declared in the NSSO survey, is land,
there are corresponding figure in urban areas which,
surprisingly are higher. Thus, close to three-fourth of the
wealth of Indians appears to be in land, and there are
reports by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural
Development (NABARD) and the Reserve Bank of India
(RBI)which make the same point.
Now, let me come straightaway to the LA issue, the
legislative history, the old Act, the Resettlement and
Rehabilitation Policy which preceded it, and the
culmination in the form of an Act, which was initially
attempted in the 2007–2008 period, getting legislated
in 2013–2014 is something you are familiar with. I want
to draw your attention to a couple of generic points
behind this whole exercise. The entire Act is focused
on acquisition of land not for government but for nongovernment entities. If you have seen the entire debate
on the ordinance, the fall out of the ordinance, the entire
attention of the Act and the commentary has been on the
clause for acquiring land, formally for public purpose, but
where the end user is not government. Let us say, a power
project, which in the olden days would have been put up
by an Electricity Board, but in today’s India, is put up by a
private sector company with whom the Government has
a power purchase agreement. It is uses like this which are
the key area of attention of this legislation, paradoxically,
if you see the history of LA and look at where the delays
have been and what were the kind of problems, almost
96% of LA under the old Act was by the government
for the government. It was not by the government for
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private sector, there were, in the mid-2004-05, some
very egregious but very public examples of two or
three acquisition for private sector entities, which got a
disproportionate amount of attention. Historically, if you
look at the data, close to 96% and, Sanjoy Chakrovarty, in
his book on land (The Price of Land –Acquisition, Conflict
and Consequence, 2013) details it much more, close to
95%–96 % of the acquisition, under the old Act, was by
the government for the government. What has been
the track record of the government in dealing with this
acquisition, I don’t need to tell you. I think, we all know
the track record has, on an average, been absolutely
horrendous. In his book, Chakrovarty takes the Hirakud
dam related acquisition, and gives five or six case studies,
wherein, in the case of over hundred families, lands were
acquired six times. You acquire a piece of land ‘x’, on the
ground that you are building a dam, in the early fifties,
you had a land for land policy, you gave them land here,
you resettled them here, exactly five years later you come
back and acquire this piece of land, which you, as a State
have given, Chakravarty goes on to give example after
example of land acquisition of this nature by government.
If you go back into history and look at the data, bulk of the
tragic cases were in the large scale irrigation and power
projects. The reason I am mentioning this is, if there is
one thing that jumps out of our experience of old land
Acquisition exercise, it is that the government generally
has done a terrible job of looking after the rights of the
people whose lands were acquired and dealing with
the whole business of R&R, taking 8 years, 12 years, on
an average, to pay compensation. And, having given
compensation 8 years later, there was endless litigation
on whether interest will be paid or not. So, the history
of LA in India is actually a history of State failure, which
this Act is trying to address, in my opinion. If you recall,
Pratap Bhanu Mehta wrote very eloquently about this in
2014-15, when he said that we collectively know that the
biggest problem of the old LA exercise was inadequate
State capacity or plain and simple venality. And what do
we do in the new Act? We actually increase the role of the
State enormously, I don’t know what is the proportion of
people here who are working in government who have
dealt with LA, who have dealt with tehsildars, who have
dealt with revenue inspectors. Expecting that hierarchy
to discharge the kind of responsibilities that have been
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now imposed on them under the 2013 Act is, honestly, a
bit of a joke. The intentions are extremely honourable. Will
anyone in a civilized country dispute the fact that, before
we deprive somebody of his or her right to property, he
should do a simple cost benefit analysis and this Act, if
you strip it of all its language, all that it says is that, before
you embark on the business of depriving somebody of
his or her right to property and, not merely property and
livelihood, but all of the emotional, cultural, other kinds
of associations with land, please carry out, a social cost
benefit exercise. Ask, “can you do this project without
acquiring land at all, if you can’t, if you need to acquire, is
this necessarily the best land to acquire”, keeping in mind
all of the factors that are plain and simple common sense
reduced to a legislation.
And, if you come to the conclusion that there is no
alternative, then please document it and if this is the
only option available to you, then make sure that the
compensation is generous. Our earlier attempts at
making compensation market-related simply didn’t
work, because there is no market for land and the market
that we create using the sale register, statistics, again,
those of us who have administered this Act, know that
a bulk of it is plain and simple fiction. A lot of it can be
twisted, depending on the conclusions that you want
to arrive at, so, this Act comes up with a slightly better
way of fixing the compensation, keeping in mind the
true scarcity value of land and ensuring that a person
deprived of land has sufficient resources to re-construct
his or her livelihood. It has put in place a whole series of
procedural safeguards, there are clear roles for the local
self-government, in the case of North-East, a different
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set of committees, so this is the broad framework of the
2013 Act. In terms of the basic substance, it’s an Act that, I
personally think, is in the right direction.
The Ordinances that were promulgated in 2014, first one
on 31.12.2014, re-issued with very minor modifications
on 3.4.2015 and a third one on 30.05.2015, essentially
tinkered with the definitions, and one or two procedural
points, and with that I will conclude. Private hospitals,
private educational institutions were explicitly brought
under ‘public purpose’ by the Ordinance, this was not
in the original Act, substitution of the word ‘private
entity’ for ‘private company’, this made sense because,
very often you could have acquisitions by a body like a
Society constituted under the Society’s Act, so, as a legal
entity this was more a drafting suggestion from the Law
Ministry and a new Section called 10 (A) where the right
of consent of the person losing land was explicitly taken
away. The more insidious provisions, in my opinion, were
the powers given to the ‘appropriate government’ to
exempt projects from the SIA, now, the SIA was essentially
a decision making tool, it helped the acquiring body to
come to a conclusion, based on an assessment of pros
and cons. Doing away with this, I don’t think, was a very
sensible idea, but that is the wisdom of the Government.
There was a specific provision to address the problems
in Section 24 and Section 24(a) on how to calculate the
period, excluding the period under stay and injunction,
and return of unutilized land and some changes in
the Fourth schedule which, again, were primarily of a
drafting nature, because this was a mistake that had to
be corrected, in the views of the Law Ministry, and there
was a clause related to removal of difficulties, which is
again a legislative clause.
The Ordinances, I am sure many of you are aware, were
referred to a Joint Select Committee of both Houses
which, I don’t think, has made progress. The Select
Committee has been formally continued, I am not sure of
the solution. Formally, the Ordinances have expired but
the Select Committee is still seized of the amendments.
The 2015 Removal of Difficulties Order essentially
looked at the compensation clause and addressed one
problem, by addressing it in an executive manner, by the
Removal of Difficulties Order. That, in short, is the history
of the changes that have been made. What are my major
remarks on what we need to do, going forward? I am
happy to see my colleague from NSDC, perhaps, he is
here to talk about the skill development, resettlement,
rehabilitation of the oustees, the land losers. I think,
what is more important is the capacity building of the
state machinery to administer this Act, in new area
like this, we need to do serious capacity building and
training in the government, state governments, district
level functionaries and creating a lot of capacity and
institutions to do SIA. Another serious issue that we
need to address, which is in a sense mentioned in the
Act, but not much work has been done, is the exercise
of updating the land records, half of the problems of a
non-existent land market, will actually get resolved if we
were to do what many of us in the administrative services
were recruited for, which is simple land administration,
up keep of land records, keep the survey in tune with
the land record, and ensure that there is a three-way
convergence of registration, land revenue administration
and survey and settlement. Capacity building of the state
machinery, creation of greater institutional capacity for
SIA, and updating and making land records much more
contemporary and relevant are three or four suggestions
that I have for going forward. I will conclude here, in case
there are comments, questions, I will be happy to respond.
Q&A Session
Person 1: Sir, when this Act was made effective from
1.1.2014, I feel the states were not ready to administer or
implement it. What do you say about this, because many
states have not even made the Rules, even after a couple
of years?
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Dr K P Krishnan: It’s a perfectly correct statement. All I
want to say is that this is not the first and only time that
the Indian Government does this, we seem to do this in
matter after matter, we go into GST, go for constitutional
amendment, start worrying about a software that is not
working, then we start worrying about a Rule that is not
written, we don’t seem to invest sufficiently in advance
for such major policy changes. This Act is, fundamentally,
a different way of working than the previous Act. The
first draft was written in 2005, we had, between 2005
and 2014, 9-10 years, during which we could have built
up capacity. You are right, we didn’t write the Rules, half
the people who are administering the Act are finding
their way by experimenting, I have no disagreement with
your view.
Person 1: Sir, my second question is, as per this LARR
2013, studies show that acquisition takes place in not
less than 18 months and may go up to 40-42 month. For
a developing country like us where projects are required,
of course, a balance has to be made, don’t you think that
this timeline delay projects, if the land acquisition itself
takes two to three years.
Dr K P Krishnan: If the particular development project is
so important, why is there no ability to obtain the consent
of the landowners? Let me give you the example, some of
you will be familiar with the 2006-‘08 Ahmedabad Urban
Development Authority experiment. The AUDA system
of acquiring land is a very well functioning, extremely
equitious and a very quick method. Let us say, I require half
an acre of land to build an overhead water tank, it needs
to be in the locality, geography says, it has to be located
at the highest point. In this room, let us say, each of us is
an occupant of a small part of land here, that unfortunate
guy whom God made, the occupant of the highest point
of land, why should he pay a price for the development of
all of us? So, AUDA came up with a very simple plan. Say,
you require half-an-acre, there are 25 households here,
half acre proportionately divided over the land holding
of every household, so I lose 220 square feet, she loses 35
square feet, a new plot is carved out which this person
would have got if he had contributed his share. They
got the plot and LA was completed, the tower was built,
water started flowing, all within six months. So, there are
methods to obtain consent. There was consent because
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the entire locality felt the need that the overhead tank
was a solution to the water supply problem of all of us. If
there is consent, will not the community, with the help of
the public policy machinery, find an answer?
Between 2006-10, the bulk of water supply, electricity
in many colonies in Ahmedabad came up through this
method and there are variants of this in Hyderabad. We
have tried variants of this in Karnataka, there are various
methods by which this has worked. My generic answer
to your question is, there is no other way you can do this,
except by SIA. SIA is a simple cost-benefit analysis, which,
I think, is the minimum required before you deprive
somebody of their right to property. I think it is difficult
to crunch the timelines, some crunching may be possible
at the margin, but the answer is consent, purchase.
Person 1: But, sir, the kind of land records we have in
India, for obtaining consenting for a big project, if the
survey of any plot number is missed, the total project is
jeopardised.
Dr K P Krishnan: Unfortunately, there is no short cut to
good governance, if land records are not well maintained,
remember, why were governments created in the first
place, to protect the life, limb and property. If we can’t get
the records matched with registration and survey, I think,
we should just go back to basics and do that well.
Mr Rishi Mendiratta: Thank you very much for making
such crucial and critical points about LA. I want to make
a point about agriculture and you could clarify. You
said that the land capital will get reduced and further
aggravated with the acquisition of land. On the other
hand, you also said that the agriculture land should be
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given up and you had some statistics to back up your
point. However, I feel that instead of encouraging the
diversion of agriculture land, it should not be given up,
even though land is required for industry. Our agriculture
production has been declining, the contribution of
agriculture to the GDP has been going downhill. Now, if
we promote agriculture, it will solve a lot of problems.
Dr K P Krishnan: I said land currently under agricultural
use is not necessarily being very well utilized, a lot of Indian
agricultural land is actually very marginal, it is perhaps
not very well-suited for agriculture. I am not the best guy
to speak about this, because, I don’t know enough about
agriculture, but the macro-point is inescapable, that the
proportion of land under agricultural use has to decline,
that does not mean agriculture is declining. Agricultural
productivity going up has nothing to do with decline
in the quantum of land under agriculture. So, I have no
disagreement with all of what you said, namely, focus on
agriculture. You can become an agricultural leader, no
quarrel, but you have to be a competitive agricultural
exporting country, but that’s a complex field. You look
at world history, there is not even one exception to
this rule, namely, with development, the proportion of
agriculture in the GDP declines precipitously, not because
agriculture is unimportant, but agricultural productivity
goes up so much that a very small proportion of people
and agriculture is actually able to feed the entire nation.
It frees up both land and labour for being deployed
in industry and services, that is the macro point I am
making. But, you can always point out the example of the
most fertile Basmati land, being taken to build a factory.
Mr Rishi Mendiratta: Absolutely sir.
Dr KP Krishnan: I make the point at the macro level.
But there is also the micro picture. Using the best land
suited for Basmati to build a hotel is the case of perverse
application.
Mr Rishi Mendiratta: Sir, it is happening and it is getting
rampant now. Probably we will have to curb it now.
Dr K P Krishnan: I can’t disagree.
Dr Abhijit Guha: I would like to know more of your
experiences, as Secretary in the Ministry of Skill
Development, how this new Law is trying to develop
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the skills of the displaced persons. How is the new Law
helping your Ministry to develop the skills of displaced
persons? Are there any plans, because skill development
is one of the most important thing in rehabilitation?
Dr KP Krishnan: Yes, I think Payaal will be talking
about our schemes, I personally do not know the
details. I suspect a lot of the specific skill development
components will be absolutely at the field level, so, land
acquisition has taken place, people have been ousted
here, what kinds of skills are needs to be developed in
this area, what is the local market, where is the shortage
of skilled labour, these responses are likely to be entirely
local. So, it’s an important component but I am not in
the position to make a general comment. I think there
are similar examples in the mining areas, as I recollect,
Orissa is using the District Mineral Development Fund for
rehabilitation, I believe there has been a fair amount of
skilling, but all done locally. But I don’t know the details.
Joyita Ghose: Thank you very much, sir, for providing
an overview of the broader context within which land
resources are managed in the country and placing the
provisions of LA Act within this broader context. I would
now like to request Dr. Ghosh to present a token f our
appreciation to sir, for joining us today. We will now
continue with the next panel discussion on R&R of PAFs
and the experience of livelihood restoration. The session
will be chaired by Dr Prodipto Ghosh, who is currently
a Distinguished Fellow at TERI, and, was formerly the
Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate
Change. The panelists for this session include, Mr Anirudh
Kumar, who is currently Joint Secretary, Ministry of Power,
Mr Mahendra Payaal, who is the head of PMKVY (RPL &
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Special Projects) at NSDC, Mr Pranay Kumar who is the
Managing Director of Consultants for Rural Area Linked
Economy and Dr Parthapriya Ghosh who is a Senior
Social Development Specialist at the World Bank. I invite
all the speakers to please join us at the dais.
Joyita Ghose: I request Dr Ghosh to please begin the
session.
Dr Ghosh: This final session is a panel discussion
on rehabilitation of Project-Affected-People and, in
particular, of the experience of the livelihood restoration.
Of course, this is a very key element of, I would not like to
use the long acronym, I would prefer to call it the Jairam
Ramesh Act. I think everybody would understand what I
am talking about, but this is a very key element of the Act.
It is one of the cardinal provisions which, in terms of equity
and social justice, makes this Act a vast improvement
over the 1894 British era Act. Without further ado, I
would like to invite our panellists to give their take on
the rehabilitation of project-affected- persons and, in
particular, the experience of livelihood restoration. One
aspect is the physical rehabilitation, restoration of the
habitats. The other is, they have lost a certain livelihood,
they have to be re-skilled, re-provisioned, you know,
provided knowledge, skills, infrastructure, financial assets,
technology, for a new livelihood. I would request each
of our panellist to speak for ten minutes, and, hopefully,
you will have time for Q&A, in the course of this session. I
would first invite Mr Mahendra Payaal.
MR MAHENDRA PAYAAL,
Head, PMKVY (RPL & Special Projects),
National Skill Development Corporation
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Thanks a lot for the opportunity I have today to speak
on skilling. I have done some research on this topic,
unfortunately, there is not much information about
skilling of people either, of Sardar Sarovar or other cases.
This tells how low it is in the priority for resettlement
or rehabilitation. In our country, most of the time, the
conversation is around compensation and other issues,
we don’t talk about livelihood generation, which shows
that this important part of rehabilitation and resettlement
is neglected. And the debate and the activity of
government machinery is primarily focused on monetary
compensation for land. I would like to address this point
through my talk, and share my ideas on this. I would like
to narrate my personal experience of rehabilitation that
I have seen. I was a school student, in late ‘70s and early
‘80s when the construction of Tehri Dam was taking place.
I would take a bus to my village which was in Uttarkashi,
so we would pass through the city or town of Tehri and
dam construction was in full swing. It was such a vibrant
town, it was one of the few town in Uttarakhand, other
than Dehradun, which had flat ground next to the river,
vibrant town almost in the middle of the state, with bus
stop, eateries. We would stop there and get down. I could
never imagine that somebody would make a watery
grave of this city, just to build a dam. Now, 40 years later,
this town doesn’t exist. The people who had moved out
from there, actually, when you come to Dehradun you
would see that, next to the forest, they had been given
some land and some place to settle down. So, you could
see a small shed that they had constructed and some
cattle they would have brought along, when they were
resettled here, or they may have purchased. Now, when
these people were living in Tehri, most of them grew rice
because there was abundant water. But, after relocation,
they told me, that other than the cattle they don’t have
any source of income. That is where the question of
livelihood generation comes. That was 40 years ago. After
that, because of the Narmada Bachao Andolan, we are
much more sensitive to these issues. But at that point
of time, we never had a thought that it is not enough to
give them compensatory land somewhere else, it is also
a question of making their lives and that is where skills
come in.
So, I will talk about how skills can be used for livelihood
generation. I am going to focus on three steps, first, I
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is linked to placement that is provided by the industry.
In respect of about forty lakh people, their existing skills
are recognized. If you have acquired your skills informally,
like, in your own house, in your shop or your own business,
your skills could be certified, that is what recognition of
prior learning.
am going to focus on our Ministry, what we are doing,
what kind of ecosystem exists and, second, my own
anticipation of what kind of skills can help those people
who have been resettled or moved out of their places,
and third, I will try to bring together their requirement
and the skill options, how they can be made use of.
I am from National Skill Development Corporation, we
exist as a public–private partnership under the Ministry
of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. NSDC was
created to develop skilling capacity in the private sector.
Therefore, a lot of our orientation is through industryrelated skills, where people can take, maybe, a welder or
a beautician training course or something else which is
industry-relevant. For that we have created sector skill
councils which are industry bodies, so they are supposed
to be our conduit to the industry. They identify what is
required by the industry and make course curriculum,
training programme, assessments modules, those kinds
of things. We have about forty of them. NSDC has also
started giving out loans for promoting skilling capacity
in the private sector. So, if you wanted to set up a skilling
centre, you could come to NSDC and take a loan and
then setup skill centre and you could repay it after three
years moratorium.
A separate Ministry was created in 2015, earlier we
were under Finance Ministry, therein this Company was
also given the responsibility of implementing Pradhan
Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana, which is an ambitious
scheme to skill about one crore people by 2020. Out
of that, about 60 lakhs have to be freshly skilled, that is,
you are a raw person, you are a college dropout or you
don’t have any skills, you can take three months’ course,
you can be given fresh skills, and the entire scheme is
placement related. The last 20% tranche of the training
Out of the 60 lakhs of fresh skilling, 25 lakhs, to be exact,
is to be done through the states and we have given
the targets and budgets to the states to implement
Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana. Right now we
are also trying to implement the modified, simplified
new apprenticeship scheme of the government. Due
to all this, a very vibrant infrastructure for skilling has
been created. We also have Pradhan Mantri Kaushal
Kendra. The Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Kendras are multiskilling centres which are supposed to come up in every
Parliamentary constituency. Funding of up to Rs 70 lakh
can be done by NSDC, so a lot of infrastructure has been
created around skilling through the efforts of Ministry of
Skill Development and NSDC. You have various skilling
centres throughout the country, almost all the districts
are covered, you have a system of training, you have a
syllabus, you have a system of trainers who are supposed
to impart this training, you have a system of assessment
and a nationally recognized certificate. This is the
ecosystem of NSDC or the Ministry of Skill Development.
There are other Schemes, there are 18 Ministries that are
actually providing skill training. I am not going to talk
about them, but there is much more than what I just
mentioned.
In addition, we are also looking at making vocation or
skill training a part of university curriculum or the school
curriculum and a lot of work has also been done on that.
A lot of companies have come forward to spend their CSR
money on skilling. As the Secretary was mentioning, Coal
India and others are also taking up vocational skilling
as part of the rehabilitation of persons who have been
displaced because of their projects.
The second part is exactly what would the people, whose
land has been taken, require for skilling or livelihood
generation. Actually, you should resettle and rehabilitate
the displaced in a way that he doesn’t require any new
skills. In fact, if he has any way of making his life and
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livelihood, he shouldn’t have to learn more skills. It is very
difficult at that point of time, there is a strata of people,
among the displaced, who are old, middle-aged and
it is difficult for them to learn new skills and then start
new ways of livelihood generation. That is why a lot of
studies say that resettlement or moving them out from
that place should be the last recourse and we should not
do that. So, if you have to move them out, I think, the next
stage is to at least get them to a setting where they don’t
have to learn a new skill and livelihood generation means
remain the same. Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen
much, government generally offers you a land which is at
a distant place, which is not a very good land, obviously,
government cannot acquire land and give it to you for
your resettlement, so generally they give you land which
maybe fallow or it’s not taken or it’s somewhere far away,
the place is much different from where you have actually
originated. If it is a shift of agriculture community from
one type of land to another, then it would be proper
to skill them or up-skill them about what grows in that
area or what can be grown to get income in that area.
It maybe cash crop cultivation, organic farming, some
seed interventions, some soil testing, so, at least, those
skills can help them settle themselves at the new place.
So, he learns to grow crops which are relevant to the area
or which he can easily sell in that area. Skilling is part of
rehabilitation. Even a farmer, moving from one area to
another, has to be re-skilled and upskilled.
It is much more difficult for tribals because tribals are
not bound to land, and, generally, the answer would be
to offer them land in some other place, If you decide to
re- train them to a new kind of living, in my opinion, the
need for up-skilling will be higher. A lot of time we also
shift people who are not bound to crafts like artisans
and craftsmen, who have a thriving eco-system at that
place, where they have market linkages, where they get
their raw materials, where they make their things, where
they sell them. Skilling is required to establish them in
the ecosystem at the next place. You will have to train
them, may be, in the modern practices of making the
same things. If it is the artisans, even if you are making
the fabric, you may have to introduce them to computer
designs, so that they can make more saleable designs
or articles now, you have to connect them to market or
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agencies which can take their stuff and sell them. You
may have to support not just that generation but right till
the next generation, 15-20 years, till the time they settle
down in that area. So, the artisans, craftsmen will require
a different strategy, different skills.
In case of farmers or the rural population, when they move
from one place to another, they will have to be provided
market linkages. It is not only about growing crops but
also looking at ways and means of providing market for
their produce. Only skilling for the sake of skilling will
never work, you can teach them organic cultivation, but if
you don’t give them a market to sell it will not help at all.
You have to look at women here, that is one sphere in our
resettlement policies that is neglected. Women are not
the landowners, so, they are generally neglected. Women
can be skilled in many ways which allows them to earn
some income like- beautician or tailoring.
Finally, I’d like to say that there is an ecosystem of training
centres and placement. Those who are willing to move
and work in an area where industry exists or business
exists can actually be trained to take up jobs there. But, at
the end of it, it has to be part of the design of settling the
people, it can’t be a one-off thing. When you do the social
impact and you take the consent, you actually have to ask
them what they would like to do at the next place. And
then you have to design skilling initiatives around those
requirements which they have consented to do. And, like
I said, it has to go beyond skilling, livelihood support has
to go on for a really long time.
We have one example where we have actually worked
with people who have been displaced, from their
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original place of habitation. During the ethnic riots in
1998, Reangs, moved to camps in Tripura. In this case,
we were asked by the Ministry of Home Affairs to skill
them and get them back to Mizoram. We trained a lot
of girls in those camps and we have been able to move
them to Tiruppur in Tamil Nadu, where they now work
in government factories. A lot of them have stayed on
because they were provided support, they were offered
food that they eat at their native place. Some people
who had decided to stay back in the camps were given
training in tailoring and the local paramilitary forces were
asked to give them some contract for uniforms. So, that is
one story where we helped in resettlement, though they
were not displaced by a project.
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organizations and people who have the necessary skills,
in order to partner with organizations like Coal India.
I don’t intend to target Coal India. This is just an example,
maybe, we might be able to get some insights on this
from Shri Pranay Kumar, he is MD for Consultants for
Rural Area Linked Economy, or CRADLE, Mr Kumar you
have the floor.
I will also give you another example where we are working
with farmers, along with different organizations within
Maharashtra Government, where they intend to skill
farmers over a week or 10 days in farming interventions
specific to that area and bring them together into selfhelp groups to farm and sell their produce to companies.
Another organization in Odisha wants to train farmers,
not only in growing their crops and marketing them but
also processing them.
These are two specific examples which, I think, you can
modify and adopt them to any case, as long as you keep
in mind that the skill is only a part of the process, you have
to support him for livelihood. I will conclude by saying that
there is a lot of capacity in terms of ecosystem, in terms
of infrastructure, trainers, skills, industry placement that
we can offer you as part of Ministry of Skill Development
at NSDC. But the design has to be yours, the people
responsible for rehabilitation have to decide what kind
of intervention has to be there after taking the consent
of the people who are going to move out. That is all I have
to say. Thanks a lot.
Dr Ghosh: Thank You Mr Payaal, for this overview of the
process of re-skilling and what rehabilitation of livelihood
entails. The question arises, say, you have an organization
like Coal India, and it acquires land, people have to be
relocated, rehabilitated and they have to be re-skilled
and their livelihood has to be restored, the coal mining
engineers in Coal India are least qualified, by experience
or training, to undertake this major effort. So, we need
SHRI PRANAY KUMAR,
MD, Cradle
Thank you Dr Ghosh. I will just pick up from where Mr
Payaal left, that skill and livelihood are two different
things. I will restrict myself to how we can work on
livelihood restoration within the parameters of this Act.
This Act has a provision which takes care of livelihood. In
schedule II under Section16 we have to assess livelihood
losers. Basically, the problem is that we have translated
everything into cash compensation, losing artisans to be
give Rs 25,000, losing job Rs 5 lakhs. People are relieved
that today’s problems are over, but for large projects
the problem remains. The second generation will be a
problem, unless and until we take care of livelihood, right
from the beginning, from the first generation, because
the cut off is 18 years of age, after 18 years of age it is
a separate family. Those who are 12 years old now, their
whining will start after five years after person becomes
a major. One person in the family who gets a job will get
married and shift to another open cast project. And the
rest of the family members will remain in that particular
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village and they will be agitating. These are the issues
which have to be addressed in rehabilitation. It is not a
short term problem. Give 5 lakhs he will not shout, 5 lakhs
is substantial money in any rural area, nobody will shout
now, but for how many years it will remain with them?
Therefore, we need livelihood planning. And that has
been taken up in many places by CSR.
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that mining has disturbed the entire pattern of life of
local people but many people of that particular area said
that their standard of life had become much better after
the mining operations had started.
We are ready to give Rs 5 lakhs because the project
proponents are, as Dr Ghosh was saying, why should a
mining engineer bother? It is better for them to pay 5
lakhs of rupees and do away with the hassle of working
on livelihood creation. But then, there are organizations,
which are acquiring land and planning for livelihood.
Definitely, Coal India’s livelihood policy is one of the best
and it is sustainable. I can give the example of Mahanadi
Coal field, in 1998, it was suggested to them that
they should engage in livelihood generation which is
dependent on coal. It was suggested that they can create
So, we have both the sides of the story, in mining areas
each family has some source of income. I will give you
an example of how important livelihood is in mining
areas. We all know that Jharia mines have been burning
and anybody can die anytime, because, everyday there
are two-three casualties. But nobody wants to leave that
place. One SIA specialist asked a local man,“Do you know
you can die any day”? The person said, “Do you know
when you will die? You can die any day, I can die any
day, if my life is only up to tomorrow I’ll die tomorrow. I
don’t know, when Humayun, who was a king, could fall
down from stairs and die, I may die by sinking into the
coal mines, so don’t tell me we will die, we will not shift
from this particular place”. Livelihood is life. Why do we
an insurance cooperative and take out insurance policies
for vehicles, equipment through that agency. In 2018 it
was confirmed that the agency is still functioning and the
commission is coming in crores. Many people who were
the original member of that cooperative have died and
their sons and daughters are now the members, so still
the families are earning. A recent study of a mining area
had focussed on the agitations with activists claiming
oppose acquisition, because, land is an insurance of life.
I want to marry my daughter, sell some land, I am sick,
sell some land, so it is an insurance, therefore, we oppose
it. There should be a sustainable income in any R&R. My
reservation is that, except for Section-16, this Act does
not talk about any livelihood. Only some international
agency funded project, which constitute, only 0.2% of
the total GDP, take care of livelihood generation. The
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remaining 99.08% of internally funded projects are
not taking care of it. So, we have to institutionalize our
livelihood plan. We must think that cash compensation is
not an option, job is not the option, because, many a time,
job is creating a lot of discord in the family.
As far as the planning for livelihood is concerned, it should
be created as a part of the project, because, it is very
seldom that people will move out. The proponent should
give the work of livelihood planning and implementation
to a specialized agency. We have livelihood mission, we
have skill mission, identify the beneficiary, give the fund
to these agencies and ensure that it is implemented. A
mining engineer should do mining and a livelihood
specialist should do livelihood plan.
We have good examples from NTPC, where income has
been generated, as part of the project, generation after
generation. Ok, there were cases where compensation
for land was not paid. To take an example, 5000 people
are migrating to the project site, they will take one litre
milk, so you have a daily market of 5000 litre milk. If it is a
meat eating state, you have a market for chicken, mutton,
eggs, bread, there are so many things. Say, if the plant is
at Angul, nobody will come from Delhi and sell these
items. When a project comes, there is a local market,
there cannot be a situation that local market cannot be
generated. If five thousand people with an average salary
of Rs 30,000 are spending 80% of their salary, you can
calculate how much monthly expenditure is there in that
particular market. So, we have to look at the expenditure
and, accordingly, you can plan the livelihood. For example,
the lady, or the person working in your colony will not
become a thief, they will always be loyal to you. Therefore,
always have a partnership mode in livelihood. That is all
from my side.
Dr Ghosh: Thank you Mr Pranay Kumar. Now, I will call
on Dr Parthapriya Ghosh, who is a Senior Development
Specialist at the World Bank to share his views. Hopefully,
he will be able to tell us something about the international
experience in livelihood restoration of PAPs, because
it is not something peculiar to India. It will be useful to
hear about the experience of the Bank, across the world,
including in India.
PARTHAPRIYA GHOSH,
Senior Social Development Specialist,
World Bank
Livelihood is one of the issues that come up in most of
our projects, more so, after our experience in 1991 when
the Bank had to withdraw from Sardar Sarovar project
because of loss of livelihood of the tribal families. So,
most of our Operating Policies have been replaced by
the new Standards. Livelihood remains an issue and,
because of the larger goal of poverty alleviation and
shared prosperity, it is important that we look into loss
of livelihood in any of our project. As Mr Krishnan said
in his key note address that acquisition of land needs to
be avoided if it is fertile, the Bank is following the same
philosophy. Try to avoid impacts as early as possible, if you
cannot avoid that, try to minimize the impact and then
mitigate. Therefore, it is important that whenever we do
a social impact assessment, we look into these issues. We
have to ask whether it is necessary to acquire that piece
of land and deprive somebody of his livelihood, or can
we bypass that land and have another alignment for the
project? Maybe we can squeeze the area and see that
not those many people are impacted. So, an analysis of
alternatives is possibly one option, which can help us in
lessening the number of PAPs losing their livelihood.
Having said that, we also understand that livelihood
planning is an imprecise art, we cannot have fool proof
plan. We tried that in India, where the Bank is working
on 165 projects now, we don’t see one good example
where we can say that we restored the livelihood of the
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impacted people. There are several factors to it, and I will
not be getting into those factors. Yes, there are issues
in restoring livelihood, because it’s not just the project
which has to do that, it also relates to the attitude of the
person who is getting impacted. Mr Payaal talked about
Tehri losses where the entire city got submerged, people
lost their houses and lost their livelihood. Tehri Hydro
Development Corporation has come a long way, we have
Mr Naithani sitting here amongst the audience, he is
dealing with the loss of livelihood in another dam project
of THDC in Vishnugarh, where they identified agencies
for training the people. A specialized agency is giving
trainings for all kinds of livelihood. But, after three -four
months of training and even after they were absorbed
by companies like Tatas, people came back saying that
the project is being constructed in this village, we need
job in THDC. Why should we go to private sector? And
then your livelihood plan fails. But, I guess, wherever we
have successful examples, it’s only possible if livelihood is
taken as a component of the project, if it remains a part
of main investment project, livelihood is restored over a
period of time. However, often it doesn’t happen because
the focus always remains on LA. The idea is to give
land free of encroachment and encumbrances to the
contractor, so that you don’t have to pay any kind of extra
charges, so free up your land, give it to the contractor, we
will take care of livelihood, that’s the approach in most
cases. Therefore, of late, we have started making this as
a component of the project, with its own budget and its
own time frame. It happened in India itself, we have this
Integrated Coastal Zone Management project in Orissa,
where, over 75,000 people are losing livelihood because
of coastal regulations. The people were taken out of debt,
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now the people in 672 villages are debt free, just because
livelihood restoration was a separate component. There
was a team which was dealing only with livelihood, they
had nothing to do with the main investment project. So,
either we take that approach or we give enough time
upfront to the project to ensure that the livelihood of
people is restored only after that investment in the project
can begin. But that will not be the case, we have taken the
loan, we are paying interest on that, why should we wait
for people to get their livelihood restored. As long as we
get the land free, contractor can start their civil work the
project will begin. So, there has to be a change of attitude,
that is what Mr. Krishnan said. Initially, it will not be easy, it
will take time for their attitude to change.
But, over the period, people are becoming more and
more aware, we have stoppages of work by PAFs because
of loss of their livelihood. Even if we have NGOs, in most
of the project we say, fine, it’s an engineering company
and they will not understand what skill development
is, what restoration of livelihood is, let us hire an NGO.
But when terms of references are prepared for the NGO,
they are given a one-year period to prepare micro plan
for all those who are losing their land, restore livelihood
and give encroachment- free land to the contractor.
Timing become an issue, the focus remains the same. So,
over a period of time, the Bank has realized, not only in
India but elsewhere also, livelihood has to be a separate
component, otherwise, livelihood restoration will not
happen in the true sense. Giving cash compensation to
them, giving allowances to them, it may increase their
cash in hand over a period of time. Most of the mid-term
reviews will show that they have got higher income,
without taking into account that they have been given
cash compensation recently.
We fail to understand that there are indirect sources of
income, which have not been covered in baseline data.
The baseline data normally, like post base-line takes twothree years for the project to come in, there are various
government schemes which has come in between which
have contributed towards the larger income of that
household, so we are taking all that into account. So, the
actual data which shows that we have restored livelihood,
is a false data. It doesn’t show the actual contribution of
the project towards improvement of livelihood. There are
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courses which various universities are running on R&R
and livelihood, IGNOU and some others have gone into
R&R in big way. But, we lack professionals in the field, we
have NGOs that’s true, we have consultants that’s fine, but
that’s a very small community.
I thought Pranay will talk about his Bagodar experience
in NH-2 where an entire market was uprooted because
NH was being widened. Pranay was responsible for the
resettlement and rehabilitation of all those vendors who
were there. It took three years, Pranay, correct me if I am
wrong, no, seven years, to get the land for those vendors,
ensuring that a vendor market is created, and establishing
rules that there will be no more encroachment on the
road, so that the vendor market flourishes. But then,
he went beyond the terms of reference and it doesn’t
happen all the time. It was a bank-funded project so I
know about this example, but there will be several such
examples. The only thing I want to pinpoint here is there
are isolated success stories, we cannot say that in every
project we have been able to do it. Our end-line survey
shows that 80% people restored their income and we
celebrate that at least 80%, but what about those 20%.
Then, there are managers those who say I am not taking
away his entire land I am just taking away 10% of his land,
so, shall I restore only 10% of the income lost, or shall I
ensure that if a person is below the poverty line then I
need to bring him above the fold, above the poverty
line. So, the definition of income restoration is itself fluid.
And, some say that if I am compensating for the asset
that I am taking away, I have paid him, right, he can go
and purchase land elsewhere and start cultivation again.
Land for land is an issue, there is no land, but I am paying
him enough, we are paying market value, so one can
purchase land, without realizing, that post-acquisition,
market value changes. The speculation creeps in, the
amount of compensation that you pay is not even good
enough to purchase 50% of the land that was lost. I guess,
we don’t have many options other than saying that we
need to look into it seriously and see it as an investment
and not as a burden for any developmental project. I will
end here.
Dr Ghosh: Thank you Dr.Parthapriya, for this overview, for
showing how complex the problem is, that there are no
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easy solutions, no standardized cut and paste formula.
Our final panellist in this session is Shri Anirudh Kumar,
he is Joint Secretary Ministry of Power. You have the floor,
Mr Kumar.
MR ANIRUDH KUMAR,
Joint Secretary, Ministry of Power
I am from the Ministry of Power. We are always at the
receiving end in such conferences, we are executing
those large power projects and we are often the centre of
criticism that we have not done that or we have not done
enough. So, I look forward to this event as an opportunity
to learn because we are directly affected due to such
issues. A large number of my projects are stuck and
billions of rupees of government money are locked up
in these projects. One project is stuck up for last seven
years and there are so many examples, billions or, I will
say, trillions of rupees of my and your money, is stuck up
in these projects. Maybe, the reason is not adequate R&R
policies or livelihood policies. We are an underdeveloped
country and we need to provide a basic dignity of life to
our people and that requires development of industries,
development of infrastructure and development of
commercial complexes. Land is a basic ingredient, you
need land for roads, land for airports, you need land for
power plants. You need land for commercial complex and
residential complexes also, our per capita consumption
of electricity is just 1100 unit, as of date as compared
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to 10,000 units in the developed world, even the global
average is 3000 units of electricity per person per year. So,
we are way behind and we have no option but to build
more power plant, more industries and more commercial
establishment if you want to provide employment to
our large number of growing population and for that
we require land. And, acquisition of land will always
involve displacement of some people, that is a challenge,
how do we minimize the impact of displacement on
the lives of these people, it is always a painful process
to get uprooted from a place and settle down at a new
place. That is certainly a difficult process and one of the
problems is that most of the infrastructure projects, be
they power projects or road projects, they are headed
by engineers. Generally, they neither have the training
nor the aptitude for resolving these kinds of issues. Till
very recently, this area has not been the focus, the focus
of the engineers, the focus of the project managers is
on the faster execution. R&R is always a very secondary
issue for him. When there is an agitation, his attention is
drawn towards the problem only at that moment. And
it is a sort of an emergency situation. Most of the time,
his energy is focused upon execution of projects and
procurement. It’s good that the new LARR Act has given
special emphasis to R&R, the Act has been well received.
Some attempts have been made to dilute the Act by the
state governments but the courts have not been very
charitable towards those amendments.
From our side also, there are problems. When I ask my
project authorities why the project is stuck up, why the
people are not happy with the project, they say that the
process is so long drawn out. We have to conduct so many
public hearings for different things, we need to conduct
a public hearing for drawing up the R&R plan, we need
to have a hearing for SIA studies of that area. Another
hearing is required for environmental clearance and
another public hearing is required for the Forest Rights
Act. So, you need four or five hearings before you get the
clearance for construction of these projects.That is a timetaking process and infrastructure projects are often very
capital-intensive projects, delay virtually kills the project.
I will give you the example, of Subansiri project, when the
administrative approval was given, the cost of the project
was estimated at Rs 6000 crores, it is stalled since 2011
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because of the local resistance. Now the project cost has
gone up to Rs 20, 000 crore. So, that is the kind of loss
we incur because of delays in these projects, certainly,
R&R it is an important area for the Ministry. Because, the
bad R&R policies or bad R&R schemes not only affect the
people, it also affects the projects adversely. It is equally
important for us to see the right kind of policies, the right
kind of schemes, in place, and we do try to take care of
people, as much as possible.
Mr Pranay has said that NTPC has been one of the leading
Organization in the power sector and they have done
pioneering work in framing R&R policy. It is the first
Organization, the first PSU to come out with the R&R
policy way back in 1987, which has been revised in 2017.
They have drawn up a very decent R&R policy focusing
upon livelihood restoration. The first thing is that they
try to provide job to as many people as possible in the
project itself. But, in a capital intensive project the job
opportunities are not so many. A 2000 megawatt plant
can offer jobs to a maximum of 1000 people because
the man-megawatt ratio is 1000. Out of those 1000
people, at least, 800 people require very high degree of
skills, normally graduates and management graduates.
So, there is very little possibility to accommodate local
people in those projects, they can be accommodated
only for very low-skilled job.
The second thing is that we engage a lot of contract
labour during the construction stage. Our policy is that
at least 80% of that labour should be from the local area.
Then, whevever a project comes up a decent township
is established. I invite all of you to visit a township in
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any of my projects in NTPC or THDC, you will see how
decently those townships have been built, they have
good markets, they have good facilities for shopping, at
least, 50% of the shops are reserved for the local people.
And 80% of the kiosks are reserved for the local people.
We engage with the training institutes and provide skills
to the displaced people and try to get them employment
also. Every project generates a lot of secondary
employment opportunities, apart from contract labour.
A lot of vehicles have to be hired for transportation of
material, for transportation of people, a lot of secondary
services are required like housekeeping service. So, they
also generate employment, we issue vendor permits
to the people to do the street vending in our colonies,
so it is a very elaborate arrangement which we have to
make to protect and restore the livelihoods of PAPs, but I
accept that a lot more needs to be done. I believe that a
lot depends on the attitude and the aptitude of the local
head of the project, he is the champion. I am very open
to any suggestion that you want to make to customize
our R&R policy, make changes in our R&R policy. You
are always welcome to my room, my coordinates are
available on the Ministry’s website.
An unfortunate part that I have observed is that there is
too much focus on government jobs. Many people who
are settled happily in some vocation or some profession,
even they keep on agitating for government jobs.
Everybody wants a government job, not all the people
can be accommodated in government jobs. Despite
providing them good training opportunities, good
employment opportunities, alternative employment
opportunities, everybody is hankering for a government
job. That is a real challenge for us and we are not able to
find a solution for it and we are stuck up in large number
of projects.
Mr Mahendra Payaal spoke about Tehri, I will share a
small story with you. This project involved submergence
of 5200 hectares of land, in totality, 22 villages were
completely submerged, 87 more villages were affected,
in addition to the old Tehri town. Some of you must
have visited the new township, it is a model township,
you must go there. It has a degree college, it has an ITI,
it has an engineering college, a decent hospital, it has
banks, it has all kinds of facilities, which are required to
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live a decent life in a town. In totality, 5300 families have
been re-settled in this new Tehri town. And, the people
who were partially affected by submergence have
been resettled in 18 resettlement colonies, spread over
Haridwar, Rishikesh and Tehri. We have spent 1500 crore
on the rehabilitation of the people, which is probably
the highest in India. 18% of the total project cost has
been spent on the rehabilitation of the people, which
is a humungous amount. We got a study done by the
Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad. They
have come out with very satisfying reports, that shows
that after the completion of Tehri, the standard of life, the
quality of life of local people has gone up many-folds in
that area. I am very happy to share this experience and I
request you to visit any of our project, the Tehri town, or
any of the NTPC townships. They have the best schools,
they have the best hospitals. From every NTPC township,
every year, at least two or three boys are making it to the
IITs. From the Central School in Rishikesh township, two or
three boys are entering IIT, every year. They are imparting
high-class education, they are providing decent kind of
medical facilities. We are open to suggestions, any kind
of new ideas, we are open to changing our R&R policies.
That is all that I have to say. I will be happy to answer any
questions or comments. Thank you.
Dr Ghosh: Thank you, Mr Anirudh Kumar for your
optimistic account of the impacts of the R&R policies of
the Ministry of Power. Now, the floor is open for questions
and comments, we have about ten minutes left in this
particular session, so, I think, we can accommodate three
or four questions. Please raise your hand.
RFCTLARR Conference 2018
Q&A Session
Mr Rishi Mendiratta: My question is to Mr Anirudh
Kumar. Sir, you just said that you have a resettlement
policy, wherein so many townships have been set up.
What is your assessment of the satisfaction levels of the
people who have been resettled, specially, when they
have not been given government jobs but they have
been given a lot of reservation in kiosks, shops etc.
Mr Aniruddha Kumar: We have not done any formal
study to assess the satisfaction level, we have done
studies to assess the quality of their life. I started my
career from Singrauli, one of the NTPC projects in Eastern
UP, which is on the border of UP, Bihar and MP. When I
joined there in 1984, it used to be a sort of a jungle, now
you go there, it has a shopping mall, it has a cinema hall,
it has decent schools and colleges, it is nothing less than
a metro and many people who went grudgingly to NTPC
Singrauli have decided to settle down there. This is an
indication that people are satisfied there, that is why they
have decided to make it a permanent home.
Mr Rishi Mendiratta: The idea behind asking you this
question was that if, in your assessment, it was a really
good exercise as the end results indicate, even if a formal
study has not been done, then this can possibly become
a role model for many other projects. So, instead of us
giving you suggestions to make changes in your policy, it
should be the other way around, that we learn from it and
try and implement it.
Mr Aniruddha Kumar: I am more sensitized today, after
this workshop. This has not been occupying too much of
my mind, so far, in future I will be devoting more time to
this aspect of the project management.
Dr Ghosh: I have a follow up question. Was all this
rehabilitation, resettlement, livelihood restoration done
by the regular project staff of NTPC and NHPC or were
there agencies, may be NGOS, may be other organizations,
who acted as an interface between the organization and
the project affected persons?
Mr Aniruddha Kumar: It’s a mixed policy, somewhere
there have been some agencies, professional agencies
have been engaged to carry out the livelihood
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restoration projects. Some of the project authorities
have done it themselves, particularly, NTPC has quite a
strong department in this area with a sizeable number
of people and there are very strong policies but we have
used professionals agencies to provide for livelihood
restoration in different areas.
Dr Dimple Tresa Abraham, Centre for Women
Development Studies: In any project where there
is displacement of households, resettlement and
rehabilitation, is there any focus on single-women headed
households? Let us say, hypothetically, in around 100
households there are five or ten single women-headed
households, is there more focus on them, because they
are more vulnerable than the rest, on restoring their
rehabilitation or livelihoods?
Mr Aniruddha Kumar: I don’t have any specific
information on the question which you have raised, but,
to the best of my understanding there is none. I am frank
to admit that we are not so savvy, to focus on a particular
target group. But, definitely, in future we will keep this
in mind. When we receive the recommendation of this
Workshop, I will circulate them to all my Public Sector
Undertakings. Yes, that’s a very valid area, in fact, my mind
has never gone in this aspect.
Dr Dimple Tresa Abraham: It is always like this, the land
will be with joint family, let us say, there are four brothers,
maybe, one brother is no longer there but his family is
there.
Mr Aniruddha Kumar: I have told you, ma’am, in the
beginning, that the projects are headed by engineers who
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neither have the training nor the aptitude, inclination
for these kind of issues. Their priority is more on the
execution, timely execution of the project, this is one of
the jobs which is being done by them, we will definitely
keep this in mind.
Dr J Rath: As part of NMDC I was associated with this
sectoral Skill Council, there are 25–30 Councils, NSDC as
a nodal agency, what is the linkage between the two?
There is no linkage, as I have experienced in NMDC. NSDC
should coordinate between different Sectoral Steel
Councils and identify the skills. But, after training they
want job. I am giving the example ofBastar -Jagdalpur,
the tribals constitute 70% of the population there. They
are trained as fitter, holder, but they do not get jobs. How
is NSDC planning to facilitate jobs for them?
Mr Mahendra Payaal: As far as NSDC’s role goes, we work
with SSC. I said in my talk that when we discuss skilling we
are primarily focused on industry-related jobs, the sector
Skill Councils were created as industry representatives
or the sounding boards for industry requirements, so,
most of the job roles are created around the industry
requirements. Yes, they may not be aligned to what may
be required by the tribal population or for some specific
project. If we are looking at skilling for a particular project
or tribes in an area, we have to incorporate it in the
design stage and link it to the livelihood. If we know that
for this livelihood generation we require this skill, then
the course content and the training methodology can be
suitably created. As of now, it is market driven, so, if there
are people willing to be trained, NSDC or Government
is willing to pay for those skill training. You are talking
about job roles, skills to work in the iron and steel sector.
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But, what we actually need to rehabilitate people in
Bastar is different. I mean they need to have some job
skills which they can use in their local economy and
increase their income. So, it is totally a different aspect
altogether and we have to look at the place, the people,
their willingness, their desire, and then make a job role, or
skill around that. It’s got very little to do with actually the
factory or industry which exists there.
Dr Nirmala Buch: I think that market linkage is crucial.
Whether it is the question of job or selling, if the market
is identified for the skills, then skill development works.
But, if you train people thinking that this is the required
skill, then there is a problem, they will come to you for
employment. So, is there any way of identifying possible
markets for the skills or for the production. You know,
even a person in the informal sector jo kiosk lagatey hain,
woh sab tarike se dekta hain ki yahan pe log aaenge, uska
bada informal system hota hai of identifying the market
(one who operates a kiosk, he looks at every aspect of
how the customers will come, he has an informal system
of identifying the market). Sab log yahin aake chai piyene,
yahan se bhi aenge, idhar se bhiaenge (everyone comes
here for tea, they will come from here, they will come
from there) so he knows what to do and how to do it.
What we were looking at is how to identify possible
markets, you talked about Singrauli, Singrauli toh green
field area usme intna kuch tha hi nahi (Singrauli was a
greenfield area, it did not have anything).If there was a
market people could come from anywhere. Singrauli toh
bahut chotasa area hai, (Singrauli is a small area), people
could come from anywhere. But what about other places,
it may be Bastar, it maybe Dantewada, it maybe Raipur,
there should be a training of people who want to involve
themselves in how to identify a market and then go for
skill development. The Skill Development Corporation,
skill toh teen mahine mein de doge uske baad kya hoega,
(skill can be given in three months after that what will
happen) then we have a problem, ki aap humko naukri do,
humko dukaan do(you must give us jobs, give us shops)
this doesn’t work out. We talk about entrepreneurship,
we tell them how to do this and how to do that, we don’t
tell them what is the risk. What is the risk-taking ability,
entrepreneurship is taking a risk woh sabke bas ki nahin
hota, woh hum kisi ko sikhate nahin hain, woh kehte hain
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humko aapne seekhaya, ab humko market do, humko
naukri. do, toh woh toh possible nai hai. (that is not every
body’s cup of tea, we cannot teach that to others, they say
you have trained us, now give us a market, give us jobs,
now that is not possible).
Somewhere, we should develop a system of telling them
what is a risk-taking ability, what is entrepreneurship, that
you take a risk, yahan pe dukan lagatey ho, yahan pe kiosk
lagatey ho kaise usme income dekhtey ho, (you will set
up a shop here, put a kiosk here what income prospects
do you see). The organizations which are going to work
with you must identify the potential markets. It maybe
for dressmaking, it maybe for beauty- parlours, so on
and so forth. Let me give you one or two examples, in
Madhya Pradesh a lot of districts tied up with Hindustan
Lever, they said they will train women and they will
buy all the food produced. The Chief Minister Mr.Bagga
was involved, at that level everything looked fine. But
when the production started, the company rejected
everything. Ye bhi thik nahin hai, woh bhi thik nahin hai,
(this is not good, that is not good). The women were
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very upset. Our organization, which is in Hoshangabad,
trained these women on how to do costing, marketing,
brand marketing. After the training these women said,“to
hell with you, humko Hindustan Lever ko nahi bechna”(we
don’t want to sell to Hindustan Lever). They made their
own brand. They said, “humara bhartiya brand hai.”(this
is our Indian brand). Jake unhone zyada paise mein
bechdiye(they went on to sell it at a higher price). So
somewhere, in the system you have to include training
on how to do market identification, what are the different
types of market, whether it is for skills or for products.
Secondly, how to become a real entrepreneur, risktaker,
humare yahan risk taker toh koi hota hi nahin Gujarat
mein hota hai, par singrauli mein nahin milega. Jahan hum
kaam karne jaate inhain wahan hume nahi milta (we don’t
have risk takers, risk takers are in Gujarat but you will
not find them in Singrauli. Where we go for works there
we do not find risk takers). We can also think and give
you some suggestion then, whenever you train people
they will know what to do. Aap ke paas fir se nahi aaegey
(they will not come to you again). In fact they will train
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you later on. So, we need to first identify a market for the
product, or their skills and then do the training. Humarey
skill development woh teen mahine ke training mein kehte
hain placement, placement toh hota hi nahi, kahan hoega
(In our three month skill development training they talk
about placement, placement does not happen, how will
it happen).We require a lot of thinking about the training
programmes that we are going to offer. If you need any
help, I would also like to do something.
presentation skills, they lack the basic knowledge of
nutrition and hygiene. If the National Skill Development
Corporation can organize a small course for providing
basic skills in nutrition, hygiene, presentation and
packing, I think that will go a long way and it will have
a very good multiplier effect. I think, a fifteen day course
will be good enough to train them in these small aspects
of street food vending. I can give you participants for
your course, that, I can assure you.
Dr Ghosh: Indeed, this is the hardest skill of all, to
identify markets and to inculcate risk- taking abilities
and I doubt that our Indian Institutes of Management
succeed in training their IIM graduates in that. Yes, there
are conundrums which cannot be solved, but, of course,
we should also remember that the persons receiving
the training, receiving the resources, are not dumb or
stupid, they perceive the world, they have the innate
ability of risk taking, of entrepreneurship, at least, some
of them have. I think, if we do a retrospective of many
of the projects which have happened, before the Jairam
Ramesh Act, my own intuition is that we will find that
a significant number of displaced people were able to
utilize the opportunities which had been created, without
necessarily having received any support or handholding
or training or entrepreneurship development skills from
the agencies concerned. But this is something a fertile
field of research, and it may help us to go forward with
the challenges which have been thrown up by the Jairam
Ramesh Act. We have to close this session at this point
and break for tea. The agenda says there is a question
and answer session, now, I can see a whole lot of people
who will ask questions, I don’t see exactly who will do
the answering.
Dr Nirmala Buch: You know every informal sector worker
has a problem with the law. Koi usko khada nahi hone
dega, koi usko ghumne nahi dega, koi aapko traffic kahe ,
wagera wagera, (Someone will not let him stand there,
someone will not let him roam with his cart , traffic man
will stop etc. etc.). They have all those problems in the
informal sector, which is where most of the people are
engaged. You have to find ways of assisting them to be
able to work within the law. Bada dukaan wala bhi usko
bhgaega, law bhi kahega ki aap yahan kyun khade ho,
ye toh app leke bhago wagera. ( Big shopowner will also
chase him away, law will also ask him why is he standing
there, go away from here). So, somewhere you will have to
deal with this issue. When you said about the street food
wallahs, they will not be talking about the hygiene, which
we may like as consumers. Usko toh kamaney ki zaroorat
hai, (He has to earn income). We do a lot of micro-finance
we find that ek thela ka paisa le k eunhone dus bana liye,
sab paani puri (with the earning from one cart they start
Mr Aniruddha Kumar: Sir, before we close I have a few
suggestions for Mr Mahendra. I have been thinking
about the markets. You go anywhere in India you have
lots of street food vendors, dhabas, carts people selling
food on the streets, and if you go abroad they have such
beautiful street food vending zones, and many times,
they are themselves the attraction for further tourism.
They become the focus of tourism, so, if you go to any of
the tourist places in India say Badrinath or Kedarnath or
Gangotri or Mathura or Brindavan you have thousands
and thousands of street food vendors. But they lack the
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ten, all selling panipuri). It is the most difficult part, how
to comply with the law, because every informal sector
has to face problems from the law.
Mr Pranay Kumar : We have so many entrepreneurs so
the only thing we have to see at the project level is how
to channelize that thinking, document it, and implement
it systematically. We have solutions. India has several
laws we don’t need any more Acts. What we require is to
systematize, document, implement properly with a good
spirit. Thank You.
Experience sharing by participants
Joyita Ghose: We will start with the final session of this
two day conference, and this session will be more about
sharing your own experiences, and all of you come with
a lot of your own experience. I would like to request Dr.
Ghosh to please begin the session.
Dr Ghosh : This session is about experience sharing,
many of you come with actual ground level practical
experience of implementation of the Jairam Ramesh
Act, I keep using that because it is easier to understand
that, it is not a mouthful like how the acronym is. You
have experience of how easy or difficult it is to manage
the process of the Jairam Ramesh Act, and you also have
prior experience of dealing with the earlier Act. You are
able to compare the two experiences, not only the ease
of undertaking the process of LA but also with respect to
the sustainability of the project, which has emerged from
this process. So, the floor is now open, you are requested
to give your experiences, not ask any questions, because
I, certainly, am not qualified to answer your questions. So,
please go ahead.
Dr J Rath: I will tell you about the experience of NMDC.
We have a 3 million ton capacity steel plant that is ready
to be commissioned. In 2010, in the first phase of LA,
we paid Rs 2 lakh per hectare. We paid the money, but
as per the R&R Policy of Chattisgarh, we were asked to
give compulsory employment, only then would land be
handed over. Giving employment to 3000 people was a
challenge because it is a high-tech steel plant but we told
that we will give employment, because we have to get
land. Chattisgarh government said that if you don’t give
employment, and employment can be given only after
the plant starts operation, you have to give them the
starting salary, minimum wage as stipend, for two years.
This caused problems because they will sit in their house,
they will not come to the plant.
After this Act became applicable, the second phase of
land acquisition started, land price became Rs 30 lakh
per hectare. We told the present day Chief Minister and
local MLA that we cannot purchase 1000 acre land at Rs
30 lakh per hectare. The GOI will not pay anything. Then,
they came down to Rs13 lakh a hectare. In the second
phase, we told that we will not give employment. This
Act tells you to give compensation, you don’t have to
give employment. So, we started training them, so that
they will be absorbed. It is a business requirement to
train them, we saw in that way, it is not the requirement
of the Act to train and absorb them. It is our requirement
as a business policy. We have our own polytechnic where
we train them. Of course, there is expectation of a job,
500 land losers are waiting, but we told them that we
cannot take them into service. We can arrange auxiliary
employment. To conclude, our experience with this
Act is that, for mining purpose, land acquisition is not
a problem, because the ores are in hills so there is not
much displacement of people, unlike coal mining, which
is done in plain area. We spend about Rs 150 crores every
year on CSR, beyond the two percent stipulated by the
Act. My personal experience is, Act or no Act, if you satisfy
the local need, any industry will come up. Thank you.
RFCTLARR Conference 2018
Dr Abhijit Guha : I have some practical suggestions about
how to move this wonderful experience of attending the
National Conference forward. I listened to everybody’s
views, sometimes asked some questions, so, my specific
suggestion is that, if we have to gain something out of
our experience, we must write down the proceedings.
Right now I was suggesting to Dr. Das, that what she has
done is very pioneering, very much forward looking, so
we have to move further. And in order to move further,
our specific responsibilities have to be set down. So, my
proposal is that each one of us should write down our
suggestions, based on our experience of this new Law
and send a write up to Dr. Das. She will wrap it up and
it would be wonderful to send some suggestions to the
Government. Unless we do it, all the money spent on our
dinner, lunch and accommodation and airfare will go
waste. So my humble suggestion is, let us not end here,
we should keep in touch with Dr. Das and we should be
doing our own duties, writing about what we have learnt.
Thank you very much.
Dr Ghosh: It is a very useful suggestion. In any case,
Dr Preeti Das was going to prepare the proceedings of this
conference, but, I think, this is an additional suggestion
you have made and she can kindly take that forward. So,
who else would like to speak?
Person 3: Actually, I want to highlight some difficulties
faced by Coal India in implementing this Act. Because,
Coal India is mostly acquiring land under The CB Act and
The CB Act is included in schedule IV of The RFCTLARR
Act. Section 105 of the RFCTLARR Act mentions that
within one year of its enactment, the provisions of the
Act will be applicable to the 13 Acts placed in Schedule
IV of the LARR Act. But, somehow the Government could
not do it so it issued the Removal of Difficulties Order. As
per that Order, we have to pay compensation for the land
acquired under The CB Act, as per Schedule-I, R&R as per
schedule -II, and infrastructure facilities as per ScheduleIII. Now, in The RFCTLARR Act, R&R is to be provided to
affected families and the definition of affected families
includes those whose primary livelihood is lost due to
acquisition of land, he may not be owning land, but he
will be entitled to get R&R benefits. Now, the question for
Coal India and its Subsidiaries is, who will identify them?
In LARR Act, the Collector is the ‘competent person’ and
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state government is the ‘appropriate government’. But, in
our case, no such clarification has been provided by the
Coal Ministry, so, who will identify the livelihood losers.
The second problem, sir, is that Section 96 of the Act
mentions that income tax will be levied on compensation
and R&R money received by the affected persons.
Subsequently, in 2016 the Income tax Department has
issued an order exempting income tax on these amounts.
Now, the problem facing Coal India subsidiaries is that
the affected persons are saying that when you are giving
compensation under the LARR Act why is income tax
being deducted, when income tax is not leviable? We
have taken up the matter with our Ministry but, till date,
we have not got any clarification, whether income tax is
to be deducted or not. These are the issues which have
to be looked into. I request Madam Das that you might
highlight this at the appropriate level. Thank you, sir.
Person 4: As far as compensation amount is concerned,
Section 94 of the new LARR Act says that no income tax
is applicable on the monetary part of compensation
received under this Act. The 13 Acts of Schedule IV, in
respect of which the Executive Order dated 13 August,
2015 was issued, has clearly stated that compensation
and other benefits will be offered as per Schedule I, II,
and III of LARR Act. Once you are giving the monetary
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compensation and award, as per LARR Act, income tax
will also be applicable to that.
Concluding Remarks by Dr Preeti Jain Das, Senior
Fellow, TERI
Person 5: Only on capital gains it can be levied.
Friends, we now come to the end of this two-day national
conference and, I hope, you found this conference
instructive. For our part, it was a sheer delight to have
you in our midst, we have learnt a whole lot, and I would
really want to take this conversation forward, because,
this is not a one-off event. The policy suggestions that
we will compile and the proceedings that we will put
together will be shared with all of you, shared with the
Government, with ministries and state government, as
well. We have come together for a purpose, it’s important
that we continue working, endeavouring to take it
forward. And, we will also be placing some of the material
on our website, the excerpts of speeches, video clips etc.,
we will be placing them all on our website. It will take us a
week or ten days to start that process. So, thank you very
much for joining us in the two-day national conference.
Wish you all the very best and Godspeed.
Person 3: Section 4 of PESA provides that if any
acquisition or alienation of land is done in Scheduled
Area, then you have to consult the Gram Sabha. In
RFCTLARR Act you have to take the consent of the Gram
Sabha. There is consult and consent, but in The CB Act
there is no such provision. We are in a fix about what
to do?
Joyita Ghose: I will just make a few announcements and
then I will invite ma’am to come up. Firstly, a link with
all the photos will be shared with you on your email
addresses. All the contact details of the other participants
as well as the speakers will also be shared so that you can
be in touch with each other, and share your experiences.
We had already said that we are planning to put together
all the policy recommendations and share them with the
concerned agencies. I now invite Dr Preeti Jain Das to
please deliver the concluding remarks.
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WAY FORWARD
1. Updation and computerization of land records
2. SIA should be compulsory for every project to fulfil the Objective of the Act as enshrined in its Preamble
3. Capacity building of SIA Units, SIA agencies, district administration and acquiring bodies
4. Standardization of SIA report format and preparation of broad Terms of References (ToRs) in major sectors
5. Preparation of manuals for acquisition proceedings and R&R activities
6. Freeze on land transactions at the time of issue of notification u/s 4 of The RFCTLARR Act, 2013
7. Organize financial counselling camps for recipients of monetary compensation
8. Training for skill development in line with available prospects in local markets
9. Dwelling units for displaced families in joint name of husband-wife
10. Create policy and regulatory framework for land pooling and leasing
11. DoLR may provide support for research and documentation to generate learning about the experience of
implementation
RFCTLARR Conference 2018
Notes:
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