A few acres less

This newspaper has consistently maintained that it is essential for India to work methods by which land can be transferred from agricultural use to industrial use. Without land-use change,growth will not be maintained at a level high enough to meet the aspirations that have grown across this country,for a better life,for a climb out of the grinding poverty. Yet the anger and resentment that botched land acquisition has caused and the irresponsible politics that has accompanied it,in places such as West Bengal and,now,Uttar Pradesh demonstrates that it needs to be carried out very carefully. Which is why news that Tata Steel has scaled down the land requirements for a new steel plant that it intends to build 35 km from its existing facility in Jamshedpur is particularly interesting.

An original requirement of 10,500 acres has been adjusted to only 4,000 acres. When we signed the MoU procurement of land was not such an issue as it has become today. We were of the impression that we would be able to create another Jamshedpur, a company vice-president said. In this particular case,one could well worry that a company like Tata Steel has been prevented from imagining another town,of the sort we need so badly,is hardly news to celebrate. But it is also true that the Tatas, famously burnt by land problems in the past,have once again demonstrated how Indias companies can and must adapt quickly to changes in the political climate. Some in Indias corporate class have been induced,by government backing of their projects,into demanding considerably more land for greenfield investment than they strictly need. Get the land,the thinking runs,and build on it later. But how much space does a factory really need even one that must be accompanied with living infrastructure?

Rather than holding out for the best possible deal,in the expectation that land in ones pocket is always useful,Indias private sector must tone down maximalist land demands. Land politics is so fraught that we must learn to instead maximise the use of every acre of land.