Land Acquisition Bill -Politics at the cost of development?

The monsoon session last Tuesday began at a very rocky note with opposition coming out all guns blazing against the ruling party which is mired in LalitGate and Vyapam scam. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) intends to discuss three contentious bills: land acquisition bill, goods and services tax(GST) and revision of labor laws—at the three-week long meeting, commonly referred to as the monsoon session since it coincides with the start of annual rainfalls. All three pieces of legislation are meant to bolster Modi's courtship of foreign investment and enhance the overall ease of doing business in India, but fervid opposition from rival parties and recent political scandals will likely see lawmakers continue bickering instead, resulting in a washout session.

While a consensus has been achieved on the GST bill with the Finance ministry accepting opposition state recommendations, the fate of the Land Acquisition Bill remains uncertain. Since the day it was passed as an ordinance , the ruling party has been under fire from opposition and civil society. Activist Anna Hazare has threatened to go on a hunger strike if the government continues ahead with bill.

Given how land acquisition for even central road and railway projects had ground to a halt, it was understandable that the central government wanted to try and get the UPA’s Land Acquisition Act amended.

The government’s Land Acquisition Bill became a big bone of contention, and a rallying point for the Opposition. Indeed, with the government now portrayed, completely incorrectly, as a hand-maiden of corporate India which wanted to snatch away land from a poor peasantry, this put paid to other initiatives. With a suit-boot-ki-sarkaar tag already sticking, this is what probably caused the government to go slow when it came to, for instance, raising gas prices or pushing privatisation—also issues where the same pro-corporate bias could be alleged. Therefore questions have now been began to ask whether it will ever see the light of the day.

Production of any kind of goods and services requires land. With the BJP-led NDA government driven by the development agenda, there was a new initiative to introduce reforms in the land acquisition procedures. With a thrust on Make-in-India and infrastructure development , it is necessary that the new bill is passed. From the economy point of view, it is essential to ensure that the land acquisition Bill gets implemented at the earliest and the issue is not further politicised. An immediate reform in the land acquisition procedures was one of the first priority areas of the new government, riding high on the development agenda. Land acquisition is central to the government’s thrust on infrastructure development, and the government would find it difficult to execute its Make-in-India programme aimed at providing a boost to manufacturing and job creation with the objective of taking India back to high growth trajectory.