Centre may stop land acquisition in Naxal-hit areas

The Central government is considering an amendment to the Land Acquisition Act to stop state government’s from acquiring land for private projects in the country’s 90 districts worst hit by Naxal violence.

Updated on: Sep 15, 2009, 24:38:06 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Central government is considering an amendment to the Land Acquisition Act to stop state government’s from acquiring land for private projects in the country’s 90 districts worst hit by Naxal violence.

Violent backlashes in Singur, Nandigram and Lal Garh areas of West Bengal since 2007 over land acquisition by the state government for private sector projects apparently led to the change in government thinking.

Earlier, Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee, whose Trinamool Congress spearheaded the anti-land acquisition movements in West Bengal and is a constituent of the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, made a similar demand.

An expert group, headed by Chief Secretary K.M. Chandrasekhar, made it clear that land in the Naxal-affected areas could be acquired by the government only for public welfare and national security.

“The proposals need to be further revised to minimise displacement of people and secure the rights of the displaced,” the group said in its report.

The group said the government should not acquire land even for cooperatives and registered societies, besides corporate entities. Land could be acquired only for national security and public welfare projects implemented by the government.

Following the group’s recommendations, six state governments — hit by Naxal violence — submitted proposals worth Rs 16,252 crore (Rs 162.5 billion) for the Centre’s approval.

Planning Commission secretary Sudha Pillai told Hindustan Times on Monday that this money would not be raised separately.

It would be made available by relocating the states’ budget allocations. The development projects in the Naxal-affected areas will begin by September end.

Pillai said the money would be spent in five areas —road connectivity, health, education, electricity and development.

On land acquisition, Pillai said there are already restrictions on direct acquisition by private entities in the tribal-dominated areas marked under Schedule IV of the Constitution.

Although most of Naxal-affected districts are tribal-dominated areas, the present law does not restrict the government from acquiring land for private investment.

The 33 districts identified for special development include one from Andhra , six from Bihar, seven from Chhattisgarh, 10 from Jharkhand, one from Madhya Pradesh, two from Maharashtra, five from Orissa and one from Uttar Pradesh.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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