Land Acquisition: Maharashtra offers a sweet land deal

To acquire private land for ongoing and upcoming private projects through direct purchase, the government has formed a district level committee headed by the district collector, and comprising officials of the revenue, irrigation, public works, legal, town planning, and land acquisition departments.

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Over 120 big dam projects in Maharashtra being hit because of a lack of clarity over compensation and other rules to be followed for land acquisition, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had formed a high-level panel of bureaucrats in December last year to firm up “direct purchase” guidelines. “There is a vast difference between the compensation provided under the Central Act, or the state’s previous model, and sale prices in the open market. This has caught the farmers in a bind over surrendering land for projects in the state,” the notification issued by revenue department’s deputy secretary Subhash Gawde states.

While the new guidelines have primarily been devised to remove bottlenecks in ongoing irrigation projects, the state has extended them to cover incomplete projects in other sectors too. It has also permitted direct purchase of land for new projects.

The guidelines state that lands required for dam sites, command area works, rehabilitation, main canal works (up to 50 per cent) and distributaries (up to 50 per cent) in incomplete irrigation projects in the state could be taken up under the direct purchase route. For incomplete non-irrigation projects, direct purchase can only be used as a one-time option. It cannot be undertaken in phases. The entire land planned to be acquired for a new non-irrigation project can also be acquired.

Senior officials said that the state primarily planned to use the route for speedy acquisition of small private land parcels required for irrigation projects. The model will also allow the state to bypass several procedures in the Land Act, including a land owner’s power to challenge the land award in court.

Maharashtra Revenue Minister Eknath Khadse said litigation had prolonged land acquisition in several projects, slowing them down. “We will use the tool to lend steam to vital projects,” Khadse added.

Among the first projects to benefit from the new guidelines could be the Lendi dam project, jointly taken up by Maharashtra and Telangana. In February, Fadnavis had reportedly informed his Telangana counterpart K Chandrasekhar Rao that Maharashtra would expedite “dam site and canal works” under the project by private purchase of land required for these components. Meant to bring 49,000 acres under irrigation, the project was first conceived in 1986.