Democracy minus people

True face of governance in Orissa

JUNE 15, 2011

Can there be anything more telling about the insensitivity and brutality of a democratically elected government which sends cops to surround villages where young children and women are lying on the ground for days together to resist forcible eviction from their land by declaring their protest “unlawful”?

Photographs of people’s protest from Jagatsinghpur in Orissa, who are resisting acquisition of their land for South Korean steel major Posco, are shocking to say the least. But that has not moved anyone.

The high-handedness of the state is evident. It wants to acquire the land no matter what. Its MoU with Posco lapsed a year ago and hence acquiring land on its behalf is wholly illegal. A PIL challenging this was filed in the high court a fortnight ago, but the court has found no time to take it up. In contrast, Allahabad high court took suo motu cognizance of newspaper reports recently to quash land acquisition by the UP government in several places.

No political party of any worth in the state, save for marginal players like the CPI and CPM, has come forward to speak for the people. The ruling BJD and other players like BJP and Congress have been know-towing with Posco for the past six years. The bureaucracy too is completely on the side of the private company. Nobody stands up for the rule of law knowing well that the action violates the Forest Rights Act and sidesteps gram panchayats’ resolutions opposing the move.

Last Sunday, three days into the desperate attempt by two thousand villagers to protect their homes and land by lying down on the ground, the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF), which granted forest clearance a month ago to make way for land acquisition, makes a ridiculous statement.

It says the state government can’t “use this clearance as a license for forcible acquisition of land”. What then the clearance was for?

The cops have been standing guard, surrounding the villages of Dhinkia pancyat for days now, waiting for the villagers to blink. Yesterday, the state government put off forcible eviction for five days in view of “raja” festival.

But how long the villagers can stand up to the state’s might is a moot question. For now, children and women are lying on the ground with men providing them food and water. The centre has provided a good example of using tear gas and police batons to forcibly throw away Baba Ramdev and his followers from the Ramlila grounds though they were holding a peaceful demonstration against corruption. They were sleeping at the time of police action.

How will the centre then stop Orissa if it were to use force in a similar fashion?

Kill Bill: Discretion in R&R will undo land acquisition law

Parliamentary panel merely throws the ball into states’ court

 MAY 21, 2012

 
Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has promised to bring in a revised bill, taking into accounty the panel report and consultations with states

While the parliamentary standing committee’s report on the land acquisition bill suggests many improvements it is the continued trust in the government’s discretionary power to decide rehabilitation and resettlement (R&R) issues that may prove its undoing.

The bill, Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (LARR) Bill of 2011, exempted the union government from R&R liabilities in case land acquired for ‘public purpose’ is less than 100 acres in rural areas and less than 50 acres in urban areas. Instead of doing away with it, the parliamentary panel proposes that this discretionary power be given to the state governments, ‘land’ being a state subject.

It doesn’t matter who exercises this power – the union government or state governments. Discretion of this nature will only mean giving R&R a go by, defeating the very purpose of the legislation. Historical evidence proves that both union and the state governments are equally guilty of not rehabilitating and resettling people who lose their land and livelihood to acquisition of land.

It is well documented how similar exemptions have defeated environmental laws and regulations. No environment clearance is needed in case of mining leases of 25 hectares or less; thermal plants of less than 500 MW and hydel projects of less than 25 MW. As a result of these, we are saddled with hundreds of such projects falling under the exemption rules in the Western Ghats, in Andhra Pradesh and Uttarakhand, putting the environment in severe stress.

Logic demands that the law provide no room for discretion. 

The parliamentary panel does something worse. While the original land acquisition bill only talked about 100 acres or less for rural areas and 50 acres of less for urban areas, the panel proposes no ceiling at all, saying that the states should be free to set their own ceilings/limitations. 

It is an invitation to virtually write off R&R.

Two more discretions have been proposed by the panel, which are decidedly undesirable.

1. The original bill provided exemption to social impact assessment (SIA) studies in case land is acquired under the ‘emergency’ provision (land needed for defence, national security and emergencies arising out of natural calamities). SIA is key to determine if a project is in ‘public purpose’, scope and nature of R&R and if the land being acquired is in line with the requirement (often land is acquired far in excess of the need). The parliamentary panel leaves this provision to the discretion of the government.

2. The original bill also proposed that multi-crop agriculture land can be acquired only as a last resort, subject to the condition that it is less than 5 percent of total arable land of the ‘district’. The panel says let the state decide the limitation at the ‘state’ level.

To be fair to the panel, however, there are elements which are welcome. Some of the key ones are:

•        Sixteen laws that empower acquisition of land (for railways, roadways, power plants, ports, SEZs etc) should be amended, and not exempted from LARR.

•        ‘Consent’ of gram sabha, not ‘consultation’ with it, is required for acquisition of land and R&R, especially in the scheduled areas (both V and VI).

•        ‘Public purpose’ be restricted to only linear infrastructure (rail, road and utilities like power), irrigation and social infrastructure like school, hospital, drinking water etc, and not be left open ended.

•        No land acquisition on behalf of private companies and even PPPs.

•        ‘Consent’ of local self-governing bodies must for SIA studies.

•        Recognise and allow greater role for states in land acquisition, land being a state subject.