Manas Dasgupta

After Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for a “Congress-free India” and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s plea for a “Sangh-free Bharat”, BJP Chief Minister Anandiben Patel seems to be working towards a “farmer-free” Gujarat. Under her reign, Gujarat has emerged as the first state to enact a measure that, if implemented in letter and spirit, will make land acquisition from the farmers for industrial and infrastructural projects child’s play, without even bothering to secure consent or pay adequate compensation.

The amendments carried out in the “Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Gujarat Amendment) Bill, 2016”, which the Centre had left to the discretion of each state, will please the industrial houses, which were finding land acquisition for various projects a tough job under the Land Acquisition Act of 2013.

The amended Bill, now only awaiting the Governor’s consent to be notified as an Act, makes it amply clear that the measure is intended to bail out the industrial entrepreneurs, including giants like Reliance, Essar and Adani groups, which were facing court cases for acquiring land but had failed to construct the proposed projects within the stipulated period and are now planning to get into “defence production”.

Though not an inch of land in the state has been acquired under the 2013 Act of the Centre, the government has this to say for why it has come up with the Bill: “It has been experienced that after coming into force, the Act (2013 Land Acquisition Act) which has very stringent provisions for acquiring land, land acquisition has become a very lengthy and difficult proposition.”

Claiming that Gujarat “is an industrially progressive state and more and more investment is coming to the state”, it says the state government aims at providing “all basic facilities and infrastructure to the entrepreneurs and therefore, considers it necessary to make the procedural part of the land acquisition smooth and easy”.

But even while it claimed that it did not “interfere with the rights of the persons whatsoever whose lands are acquired”, it has virtually taken away all the rights of the farmers to refuse sale of land or dispute over the payment of compensation.

Soon after Modi took over as the Prime Minister, the Centre had tried to adopt a similar measure through an ordinance but had to give it up due to a series of vociferous protests.

While all other states are learnt to be still contemplating on the measure, Modi’s successor in Gujarat, Anandiben Patel, has become the first Chief Minister to reframe the strong anti-farmer measure and got the Bill passed during the last budget session by a voice vote. It was moved on a day when the entire Opposition remained suspended for creating a ruckus in the House over the Patel reservation agitation.

The Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party have asked the Governor not to give his assent, but the Modi-nominee in the Raj Bhavan, Om Prakash Kohli, may not oblige.

While the 2013 Bill had mandated “consent” of the farmers, social impact assessment of such purchases and relief and rehabilitation of the families affected by the acquisition of land with the exemption granted only in case of the government acquiring for its own use for a “public purpose” and for the purposes of defence forces, the amendment has added a host of other industries in the exemption category.

These include land required for any project “vital to national security or defence of India, including preparation for defence and defence production”, rural infrastructure including electrification, affordable housing and housing for the poor, industrial corridors set up by the state government and its undertakings (in addition to the projects like Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor or DMIC being set up by the Centre and passing through Gujarat), and social infrastructure projects.

According to the general secretary of the Gujarat Khedut Samaj, Sagar Rabari, the amended Bill would impact more than 60 per cent of the farmland under the DMIC project alone, the length of which in Gujarat would be 564 km from Amirgarh in the north to Bulsar in the south.

The BJP sources admit that many leaders themselves were unaware about the adverse impact the Bill would have on the farmers.

Fake BPL cards

The state Civil Supplies and Consumers Affairs Department has come out with shocking revelations that more than 1.58 lakh people owning cars or more than 5 acres of irrigated lands held “Below the Poverty Line” cards, enjoying highly subsidised benefits from the ration shops meant for the families earning less than Rs 501 per month in urban areas and Rs 324 in rural areas.

The revelations followed a scrutiny of the BPL card holders with the state government deciding to implement the National Food Security Act, but under a new nomenclature, “Maa Annapurna”.