Calcutta, April 15: Jharkhand is planning to make it
mandatory for industry to offer free plots and a regular monthly income
to landlosers, a proposal investors will find too stringent and states
like Bengal too difficult to resist.
The deputy chief minister of Jharkhand, Sudhir Mahato, told The
Telegraph that the proposal for the free land and steady payment would
be part of an upcoming rehabilitation and resettlement scheme.
According to the policy, tracts equivalent to one tenth of that to be
acquired will have to be given free elsewhere to the landlosers. The
landlosers will also get Rs 1,000 an acre every month for 30 years with
a cap of Rs 10,000 a month for an individual. The two incentives will
be over and above full compensation in cash for the land.
Mahato, who was in Calcutta to participate in the annual general
meeting of the CII (eastern region), said the policy would be ready by
the end of April or early May.
If the Jharkhand government presses ahead with the policy, it is
unlikely to go down well with investors, especially those who have
sought large tracts of land for steel projects in the state.
The policy is also being seen as a signal to discourage huge
acquisitions. Under the policy, the higher the acquisition, the larger
the slice of land to be given free.
“I don’t think it is feasible. It will raise land cost tremendously,”
said an official of a company that has lined up investments in
Jharkhand.
Perhaps keeping the approaching elections in mind, Mahato said: “Those
who are giving land should enjoy 10 times better lifestyle than they
had before giving land. It cannot be use and throw.”
The policy could put pressure on states like Bengal and Orissa, which
are facing resistance to land acquisition, to make their rehabilitation
terms more landloser-friendly.
But a senior Bengal government official said: “We are neither
threatened nor worried about what others doing.”
He said Bengal was also considering a proposal to give losers small
parcels of land in the vicinity of the industry.
Often, land prices go up by many times after an industrial unit comes
up and those who gave land feel cheated. By giving land near the unit,
the government plans to address that concern. “The idea is to capture
the future value of the land after the industry comes up,” the official
said.
Other officials said a proposal to pay a monthly compensation to the
elderly was also under consideration.
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