West Bengal to give free land to poor farmers

http://www.thehindu.com/2010/04/16/stories/2010041657800100.htm

Kolkata: The West Bengal government has decided to distribute land, free of cost, to poor farmers and landless agricultural labourers by buying land from willing landowners, offering them a price which may be higher than the market value. More than two lakh families are likely to be benefited by this step, which is expected to add an important dimension to the sphere of land reforms.

Finance Minister Asim Kumar Dasgupta told The Hinduthat the Land and Land Reforms Department will initiate necessary legal and administrative steps and the matter is likely to be placed before the Legislative Assembly when it commences its session in the third week of June.

Land acquisition

He said the acquisition of homestead land (up to a stipulated limit) for distribution among the rural poor who may be occupying that land as homestead, but without any ownership rights, has been a significant component of land reforms.

In order to distribute more land to landless poor farmers, the existing scheme of purchase of land from willing farmers at 10 per cent higher price than the market price, it is proposed to make the scheme more attractive by offering a price which may be up to 25 per cent higher.

In 1980, the State government had covered landless agricultural labourers, rural artisans and fishermen, implementing relevant sections of the Acquisition of Homestead Land Act, 1975.

According to the extant provisions of the Act, those who were in possession of homestead land as on June 26, 1975, were covered. The State government has now decided to implement this Act again for the same category of rural population with reference to December 31, 2009, as the date of possession of homestead land and ownership rights on such homestead land up to five cottas (about 3,500 sq.ft.) would be vested on them. This has already been announced by Mr. Dasgupta in his 2010-11 budget statement.

He said the total agricultural land distributed in the State up to February 28, 2010, is 11.3 lakh acres. Over 30 lakh farmers, of which 55 per cent belong to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, have benefited from this measure.

“In the alternative policy, redistributive land reform remains the fundamental basis of increasing employment oriented production.”

The real issues behind land acquisition

The real issues behind land acquisition

The real issues behind land acquisition

By Pranab Bardhan. The Hindu, August 1 2009

The opportunistic and partisan stalling of the Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bills in the Cabinet recently by Mamata Banerjee has provided an opportunity to rethink some of the important provisions of the Bills (which she is not concerned about, but should have been).

Under the prospective legislation, a company must first buy directly from landowners 70 per cent of the land required. The state steps in to buy the rest in case some recalcitrant landowners are holding out; even here, the sellers are guaranteed a 60 per cent premium on the average land price over the previous three years. While this is an improvement on the existing colonial land acquisition law, this is quite unsatisfactory, particularly from the point of view of stake-holders in agricultural land. Let us spell out the reasons:

First, while leaving the major part of the transaction to the market may stop the matter from becoming a political game of football in populist competitive politics (as has happened in West Bengal), it is an inadequate solution to a complicated problem. Even assuming that the purpose for which the land is to be transferred is a legitimate one from an economic and environmental point of view, Indian history is replete with instances of uninformed, cash-strapped peasants being induced to sell their land at nominal prices by the lure of ready cash from developers, speculators, and touts of large corporate interests. This is how many Adivasis have lost their land even in recent years. Even in the case of informed, market-savvy sellers, thousands of small, uncoordinated farmers are no match for a large corporate buyer in the bargaining process.

Of course, in many cases the State government did very little to get the landowners a good price; but there is potential here for community organisers (and panchayats) to get involved in ensuring a fair price. In particular, the provision of a 60 per cent premium on the past average price is not good enough. The average past price is for the land as agricultural land, whereas use for industrial or infrastructure purpose will probably multiply the value many times, the gain from which the farmer is deprived. So, over and above the value of the agricultural land being considered as a minimum floor of basic compensation, the farmers should be compensated with a share in the enterprise or company, so that they can benefit from future profits.

Of course, the poor farmer may not have the capacity to bear the risks of fluctuating share prices. Here the role of the state is to put the farmers’ shares of the new company in an independently managed trust fund which will bear the risks at the cost of some management fees. Out of this trust fund, the farmer should be paid a steady “pension” (or annuity) every six months or so. Given the large gap between productivity in agriculture and the new activity for which the land is acquired, the farmer can be assured of a reasonable stream of pension. This will go a long way in assuaging the anxieties of an uncertain future that the farmer may contemplate in selling the land.

Also, a regular pension may be more advisable than a one-off cash payment, which often tends to get frittered away. In case the land is acquired for public infrastructure building (where there may not be any direct company profits to be shared), the land should be given out by the farmer on long-term lease with the rent periodically readjusted in accordance with the current value of surrounding pieces of land and the rental increases deposited in a trust fund.

Secondly, a land sale displaces not just landowners, but other stakeholders as well (sharecroppers and agricultural labourers working on the land, for example). In West Bengal, the government had announced compensation to be paid to registered sharecroppers (which Ms Banerjee never paid much attention to). But the state also needs to be involved in some form of welfare payments (and job training and so on) to unregistered sharecroppers and landless workers.

Thirdly, the state often needs to get involved in building roads, providing electricity, water supply and so on for the new company, and this may require coordination in the land transaction itself between the transactors and the state right from the beginning.

Of course, politicians often lack credibility in any process of obtaining fair compensation to land sellers. Cases of politicians, middlemen, and contractors defrauding poor sellers of their compensation and resettlement rights are far too many. So it may be desirable in some cases to hand over the responsibility of determining fair prices and managing the process of transfer and resettlement to an independent commission, provided political interference with the working of such a commission can be minimised and enough opportunity is given to community leaders and organisations to serve in such commissions or present their cases at hearings before the commission, and to generally act as watchdogs in the whole process.

Thus, what is at stake with the new Bills is much larger and deeper than Ms Banerjee’s political gripe.

The author is a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley.

Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill: A slow but sure step forward

Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill: A slow but sure step forward

Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill: A slow but sure step forward

By Ramaswamy R. Iyer. The Hindu. August 7 2009

The debate about the displacement of people caused by various developmental projects has been going on for over two decades. Without going into that history in detail, we may note that the Government of India finally notified the National Rehabilitation and Resettlement Policy 2007 in October 2007, and followed that up with the Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill 2007 and the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill 2007. Those Bills have lapsed and have now to be introduced afresh in the new Lok Sabha. There have been reports that Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee is unhappy with the Bills. There have also been protests against the Bills by many NGOs.

Superficially, the Bills seem to include a number of good elements. There was a demand for a Rehabilitation Act and here is a Bill; the much-criticised Land Acquisition Act is being amended; ‘public purpose’ is being re-defined; governmental acquisition of land for private parties is being reduced; ‘minimum displacement,’ ‘non-displacing alternatives,’ consultations with the people likely to be affected, and so on, find a place in the Rehabilitation Bill; a Social Impact Assessment is provided for; an Ombudsman is being provided for the redress of grievances; and a National Rehabilitation Commission is envisaged. Why then are the Bills not being welcomed?

Let us consider the Land Acquisition Amendment Bill first. At first sight, the deletion of all references to companies gives us the impression that acquisition by the state for private parties is being eliminated, but that is not the case. The original Act had the wording “for a public purpose or for a company”; the words “or for a company” are now being omitted; but the definition of “public purpose” itself is being changed to include a (supplementary) acquisition for “a person” (including a company). If the private party purchases 70 per cent of the required land through negotiation, the balance 30 per cent can still be acquired by the government for that party. This means that sovereign compulsion will be brought to bear on those who are not inclined to sell their land, and also that state patronage for industrial houses can continue. Incidentally, it will be seen that the definition of ‘public purpose,’ instead of being made stringent and narrow as many had recommended, is being widened.

Moreover, it was necessary not merely to rule out (or limit) the acquisition of land for private parties under the Land Acquisition Act, but also to ensure that rural communities are not taken advantage of by corporate bodies in unequal negotiations. There is no such provision in the Bill.

Judging by its name, The Land Acquisition Compensation Disputes Settlement Authority will apparently deal only with compensation issues. A longstanding criticism of the Land Acquisition Act has been that the ‘public purpose’ for which land is being acquired is not open to contestation. There seems to be no change in that position.

One wonders whether the bar on the jurisdiction of the civil courts and the establishment of a Dispute Settlement Authority instead is in fact a good thing to do. There is room for misgivings here.

Turning now to the Rehabilitation Bill, the provision for a Social Impact Assessment seems very good, but the impacts are rather narrowly confined to physical assets (buildings, temples), institutions, facilities, etc. Social impacts must be more broadly understood to include the loss of identity; the disappearance of a whole way of life; the dispersal of close-knit communities; the loss of a centuries-old relationship with nature; the loss of roots; and so on. It is good that the SIA will be reviewed by an independent multi-disciplinary expert body, but it should first be prepared by a similar body. The provision for a Social Impact Assessment clearance is good, but not enough: it should be part of an overall clearance for displacement. If the felling of trees and interference with wildlife and nature in general require statutory clearances, should not the displacement of people be subject to a similar requirement? Such a clearance must come from an independent statutory authority and not from the bureaucracy. The clearance must of course be subject to certain conditions and must be revocable in the event of non-compliance or lapses; and the revocation clause should be actually used.

The terms ‘minimum displacement’ and ‘non-displacing alternative’ are music to the ears, but the application of this criterion is left to a late stage when the consideration of options may no longer be possible, and the decision is left to the Administrator for R&R. In other words, this crucial decision is entrusted to the bureaucracy.

An impressive structure of institutions has been specified, but their responsibilities and powers have not been spelt out. Administrator, Commissioner, project-level and district-level R&R Committees, Ombudsman, Monitoring and Oversight Committees, National R&R Commission: what each will do, how they will be inter-related, what decision-making powers each will have and in relation to what aspects, and so on, are far from clear. Everything is covered by the phrase “as may be prescribed.”

Words such as “wherever possible,” or other similar phrases are scattered throughout the Bill. For instance, group settlement is laid down, but qualified by the phrase “wherever possible;” training is to be provided “wherever necessary;” there are also qualifications such as “if government land is available,” “preferably,” and so on. They seem innocuous, but all of them involve decisions. Such hedged-in requirements can hardly be mandatory: they are likely to become discretionary, with the discretion vesting in the bureaucracy.

The Ombudsman provision is a good one, but ‘grievance’ has been narrowly defined to cover only the case of “not being offered the benefits admissible.” Grievances could relate to many other things: non-participatory project decision, failures of consultation, non-compliance with the minimum displacement condition, non-inclusion of a person in the ‘affected’ category, and so on. How the Ombudsman will be appointed, how the Ombudsman will function, etc., are left to be ‘prescribed.’

Taking the preceding points together, it appears that the precise manner in which this seemingly benign and enlightened legislation will actually work in practice will be entirely determined by the delegated/subordinate legislation, that is, the rules that are made under it.

The National Monitoring Committee seems totally bureaucratic, except for the non-mandatory association of some experts (the operative word is “may”). No civil society or NGO participation seems envisaged.

In the case of the Sardar Sarovar Project the basic principle in force (though it may not always be complied with) is: rehabilitation must precede submergence. The present Bill retreats from that position and requires only “adequate progress in rehabilitation” prior to displacement. This is a retrograde step. Besides, who will decide the adequacy of the progress?

The elements of the rehabilitation ‘package’ seem inferior to the policies already adopted in projects such as Sardar Sarovar and Tehri. Moreover, cash in lieu of land is envisaged in several places. This is fraught with danger. Eventually, cash may well become the main form of compensation.

In the event of deliberate or inadvertent lapses or non-compliance or deviations, what consequences will follow? The Bill is silent on this. Without such sanctions, how can the provisions be enforced? Far from sanctions for non-compliance, there is a sweeping indemnity provision!

In addition to those primary points, there are many others, some of them quite important, that need consideration. They cannot be set forth in detail here for want of space.

The conclusion that emerges from this quick examination of the two Bills is that there are many weaknesses and questionable features in these Bills which need to be rectified. Opposition to the Bills is therefore warranted. However, the very fact that the government is thinking of a rehabilitation law and of amending the Land Acquisition Act is an achievement for public opinion. It has taken more than two decades for the debate to reach this stage. Opposition to the Bills should be carefully modulated so that we can proceed further from here and not lose what has been gained.

Operation Sharecropper comes a cropper

http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?date=2008-05-05&usrsess=1269188832050&clid=1&id=229089

Shiv Karan Singh
KOLKATA, May 4: “As soon as I heard about the camp, I ran to get our name recorded”, said Mr Singho, remembering the events of 1984, when the effects of Operation Barga first reached his village, Liluakola, in West Midnapore. Mr. Singho remembers Land Reforms under the Left Front as a “good thing”, because under Operation Barga, his father, Sumanto Singho, a sharecropper, was protected from being evicted by the landowner and guaranteed a 75% share of the .3-acre area cultivated. This protection gave food security to the Singho family.
However, for Mr. Singho, the benefits of Operation Barga have long expired. His father passed away. And, in 1991, the state government acquired the land that he and his four brothers continued to sharecrop in Kalaikunda Gram Panchayat to establish a Tata pig iron factory. The compensation was less than Rs. 2,000. Now, with but a small adjoining homestead plot where they grow vegetables and sesame, the Singho brothers are another example of the lakhs of beneficiaries of land reform that have been subsequently dispossessed of food, income, and status by state land acquisition. For, although land reform protected the sharecropper from the whims of the absentee landlord, it has been powerless against the whims of the state government armed with the Land Acquisition Act (1894).
One of the reasons why the Left Front Government has maintained power for over 30 years in West Bengal is because of its implementation of land reforms of which Operation Barga has been touted as particularly successful. According to the West Bengal Human Development Report 2004, by 2000, 16.80 lakh bargadars were recorded under Operation Barga, which accounted for 20.2 % of agricultural households in the state.. However, the same report noted a marked decline in the recording of bargadars by the mid-1980’s and that there has since been “increasing land alienation by pattadars, and of eviction of bargadars, thus suggesting that the benefits of land reform have been relatively short-lived at least for some rural households.” The report details that 14.13% of recorded bargadars have been evicted since the commencement of Land Reforms.
Nevertheless, even such official acceptance of failures, which but mildly undercuts the perceptions of success in Land Reforms, does not account for the concomitant displacement and dispossession of recorded and unrecorded bargadars, pattadars, and agricultural labour in rural Bengal via coercive land acquisition laws for development projects like industries, dams, power stations, roads, and mines, ever since independence.
According to a study by Mr. Walter Fernandes, between 1947 and 2000, courtesy the Land Acquisition Act (1894) and the far more coercive West Bengal Land Requisition and Acquisition Act (1948), which was repealed in 1993, 47 lakh acres of land was acquired in Bengal, affecting 70 lakh individuals, of which 36 lakh represent those displaced and 34 lakh represent those deprived of livelihood.
That the numbers of displaced and dispossessed by land acquisition far outnumber those who have benefited from Land Reforms is a fact not lost to villagers like Mr. Singho, residing in the Kalaikunda Gram Panchayat in West Midnapore. Tailing the entry of the Tata pig iron factory, with the help of further land acquisition, numerous industries have sprung up on the same fertile land in last 15 years, eroding the livelihood of thousands of cultivators and providing them no jobs, while alternative uncultivable land north of Midnapore railway station still remains available. Such has been the rate of land acquisition in the area that a study by Mr. Abhijit Guha, using acquisition figures of only the Tata and proposed Birla factory - the project being since abandoned - argues that land has been acquired for industry in Kalaikunda at twice the rate at which it has been distributed in reforms.
Mr Trilochan Rana, a former CPI (ML) leader, who later joined the trade union wing of the Congress Party and led a local resistance against acquisitions and inadequate compensation that reached its height in 1995-1996, has witnessed the privations and disillusionment suffered by land losers in Kalaikunda Gram Panchayat at close quarters. On being asked whether the resistance in Nandigram will have an impact on the imminent Kalaikunda panchayat elections, Mr. Rana emphasised that “this time none of the 17 Kalaikunda seats will be uncontested.” And then, with a twinkle in his eye, he added: “the rest of the story is in the secret of the secret ballot.”