Punjab offers lesson in land acquisition

“The land compensation is likely to be Rs 1.5 crore per acre for farms near the highway and Rs 1.25 crore for those seven or more kilometres away,” said Secretary,Housing and Urban Development,S S Sandhu.

The Additional Chief Administrator of Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA),Balwinder Singh Multani,said in all,444 acres of land would be acquired and the final compensation would be announced after the meeting of a price fixation committee headed by the Deputy Commissioner.

Punjab has been equally generous with other land acquisitions. The upcoming central university in Bhatinda and the 1,300 acres acquired for the Rajpura Mega Thermal Plant fetched a compensation of Rs 35 lakh an acre for farmers.

Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Badal said land in Punjab is precious and there is no point in delaying projects because of social unrest. “We are all seeing what’s happening over the Nagarjuna power plant (in Srikakulam). The people who are dislocated should feel totally satisfied. Punjab has never seen an agitation over land acquisition. In future,land is not going to grow. At least the farmer should be able to get the best deal for what he parts with,” Badal says.

As per Punjab’s land acquisition policy,these “best deals” are decided by price fixation committees set up for each project,which include MLAs and MPs of that area.

While the high compensations have ensured that land acquisitions in the state have so far gone off without a hitch,the erstwhile Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) objected to the compensation figure set for the state’s biggest power project,the 2640-MW Gidderbaha plant. Interestingly,Gidderbaha is represented in the state Assembly by Manpreet Badal.

Now known as Powercom,the PSEB referred the matter of land compensation back to the government citing the rate of Rs 20-28 lakh per acre to be very high. “Though the 2008 land acquisition proceedings for the power plant have lapsed,we had found the compensation to be too high. Much of the land to be acquired was wasteland. So we referred the matter back to the price fixation committee,” a Powercom official said.

In fact,concerns are now being raised by some quarters that while the smooth land acquisitions have helped Punjab’s cause,the upward trend in land compensation may soon prove a deterrent. A report on the investment scene in Punjab,released by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) in 2008,cited the state’s soaring land prices as the biggest impediment in the way of it getting future investments. The state’s industrial graph has been lately on the decline.

Industries Minister Manoranjan Kalia says that the state hopes to get around this problem by creating a land bank in “high-potential areas”.

Another theory is that unable to afford land in high-demand areas,industries may fan out to regions currently far away from the development map. “This would bring equitable development as families of small farmers will also be able to diversify from agriculture to jobs in industry,” says Punjab Farmers Commission Chairman Dr G S Kalkat.

As for farmers,with the disposable income in their hands,they can afford large tracts elsewhere too,notes Kalkat. “For instance,many farmers displaced from Jhurheri for the international airport have been able to buy 15 acres in Mansa district with the compensation they received for their two-three acres,” Kalkat says.