No land ahoy

In the Delhi suburb of Greater Noida,clashes have broken out between farmers and police,in which several people have died,including two policemen. The clashes were sparked off by the abduction of three employees of UP Roadways; the farmers are apparently objecting to the price at which land has been acquired for the Yamuna Expressway road-building project. Uttar Pradesh has land acquisition processes in place that may be among the best in the country. But this violence is a reminder that,nevertheless,framing a just and efficient mechanism by which land can be acquired is a knotty problem. Protests over roads in western UP have focused not on the actual act of acquisition,but on the prices paid to the land’s original owners. It should not be surprising that this is problematic in Gautam Buddha Nagar,so close to the capital; land prices have gone up and up in Delhi’s margins,and every cultivator knows this is a monetisable asset. They might trust the prices for that asset the market delivers,but they are unlikely to repose that same faith in the administrative machinery.

This is not a problem likely to go away. Across the country,markets for agricultural land are stunted; and yet,as India urbanises,it frequently sells at a premium in areas that are well-connected — precisely the sort of areas targeted for acquisition. What India continues to need,therefore,is a national land acquisition system that takes into account people’s aspirations — which include,as in this case,the ability to ensure their expectations of the value of their land is taken into account.

Finalising this bill will not be easy. It will need wide public discussion,in order to make it robust and workable. And so it is deeply disheartening that UPA 2 has not moved on it,nor has it put up a version for public discussion. It is generally understood that actually passing the bill is politically difficult,since some constituents of the UPA — the Trinamool Congress in particular — have structured their politics around a negativity about land acquisition. Yet it is also indisputable that some such bill will have to be passed. Whatever the UPA’s number-crunching may spit out about the actual act of passage,acts of discussion and passage need not be delayed. That it has is just another sign that this government is choosing to passively drift instead of actively reform.