Land Acquisition Bill and the Panchayet: things to expect and fear. A case study on Salboni
By Debarshi Das, Sanhati
The Rehabilitation and Settlement Bill and the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill have recently been tabled in the Parliament. One of its core proposals is, the government should not be a direct participant in land acquisition for industries. This has raised the heckle of a certain section of corporate media. The Anandabazar Patrika editorial of 10th December complains, “..the pace of industrialisation would surely slow down in some states of the country. Take for instance this state (West Bengal - ed.). The land plots under individual ownership in this state are generally small. Therefore the industrialist would face much difficulty in acquiring a big consolidated piece of land which is needed for large scale industries. On the one hand, land price would shoot up due to inefficiency in the land market. On the other, powerful speculators would start calling the shots. Hence the real owner of the land would lose out as well. This could have been avoided had the state government acquired the land.”.
When the government is not in the scene does the acquisition process become hostage to unwilling, ignorant peasants and scheming speculators? Do the entire paraphernalia of political parties, bureaucracy and other institutions simply sit by and let the invisible hand of market decide what goes where? On 11th January, 2007 at a Kolkata five star hotel Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was spouting Shakespeare and Tagore . He had just concluded a deal handing over 4300 acres of government land at Salboni to the Jindal group to set up a steel factory. Jindal group was supposed to acquire a further 500 acres of land directly from the landholders. How did it go? What has been the role of the Panchayat, both as a mediating agency between the industrialist and peasants and as a collective bargaining body of villagers? Swati Bhattacharya did a field tour and wrote two op-ed articles on 6th and 7th September in The Anandabazar Patrika.
Panchayat as a bargaining body: Kashijora and Bakibodh villages
Manabendra Roy, Secretary, Panchayat Department, is of the opinion that Panchayats have some duties regarding setting up of small industries but none in heavy industries. The industrialists however have a different take on it. Rajesh Gupta, Project Vice President, JSW Bengal, thinks Panchayats have four major roles to play. One, to ascertain who is the real owner of the land. Two, if she is not alive, to detect who is the inheritor. Three, to decide who will get what portion of the compensation. Four, to clarify the nature of the package offered by the company to the villagers. Local administrators concur. Bishwadip Barik, BDO, Salboni holds Panchayats have the role of public interface between the industrialist and villagers. And also to forcefully place the demands of villagers.
The villagers however have had a different experience on these matters. Kalpana Paria, President, Salboni Panchayat Samiti, could not remember if there were any conditions in the compensation package which came from the villagers. Neither does she know of any mechanism through which people’s demands are known so that they could be bargained upon. How does she know if everyone is willing to sell land? “We are able to execute the project because people want it. Otherwise there would have been no projects.” Amulya Singh and Bibhishan Ray, heads of Kashijora and Bakibadh village Panchayats were not consulted when land to be acquired was selected. Only Jindal people, DM, Minister were there. Three lakh rupees are being given in cheques, three lakhs in cash: why not the entire amount in cash? “We have no idea. DM, BDO had a talk.” Villagers gathered at a forsaken primary school were unanimous: Panchayat had taken the side of the Jindal, instead of the public. If it had done the latter they could have had a far better deal.
Panchayat as a bargaining body: Asnashuli, Bashkopana, Saldanga villages
Villagers of Asnashuli, Bashkopana, Saldanga are not opposing industries, they are rather eager about the steel factory. But the rehabilitation package they are getting is entirely decided by the company, they had no say in it. The package entails cash payment of Rs. 3 lakhs, Rs 3 lakhs worth of shares and job to one member of each family. More crucially, the last two are purely verbal promises. District Commission Bhabaniprasad Barat thinks the deal is founded on ‘good faith.’ Bishwadip Gupta, CEO, Jindal group, believes since Buddhabeb Bhattacharjee has been assured by Sajjan Jindal there is no scope for uncertainties. Sachindra Bhuiyan, Panchayat member, Bashkopana, believes out of the ten thousand workers that Jindal would employ all would come from these villages. They have been promised so in front of the DM and BDO. Besides, the state government would have shares in the company. But DM, BDO may get transferred tomorrow. IISCO did not employ the evicted of Purushottampur. Why are they accepting the offer when there is no written assurance? “Party is making it, we are taking it. I don’t have any personal opinions.” What is the difference between the party and Panchayat? “Party runs Panchayat. Panchayat has no autonomy. We have to go with the party directive.”
There is no representation of opposition parties in these villages. Rajesh Gupta, when asked to name a few Panchayat members who have helped in land acquisition, referred to someone who is not a Panchayat member but a party worker. Virtually no gap exists between the political and the administrative. With breathtaking ease therefore, protest to the land deal is equated with political opposition. When told that Asnashuli is refusing to sell 50-60 acres of fertile land, Sachindra Bhuiyan prophesises, “They are doing this for the sake of political opposition.” Asnashuli residents did not dare to speak at the public hearing of Jindal takeover. “We would have got marked as the opposition if we had said anything.”
Villagers were not consulted when land price was fixed. Bishwadip Gupta offers the ‘scientific’ government formula which entails no role for the seller in determining land price. The Land Revenue Department calculates it on the basis of the average prevailing price of previous three years. “Therefore Rs. 2.75 lakhs and Rs. 3 lakhs per acre for non-agricultural and agricultural land are the correct prices.” Villagers of Saldanga and Bashkopna are not convinced. Why the land price is so low in Salboni? “We have read in newspapers that in Kharagpur the going rate is eight to ten lakhs. In Singur it’s seven lakhs. Panchayat members told us that the price we are getting is three times the real price.” Draft proposal of central government for land acquisition indeed has provision of three years’ average as the compensation price. But Pariskar Mahato of Asnashuli has a different take, “Land price has gone up sharply. I shall be able to buy only one bigha after I sell one acre. How will I survive on farming?”
More fundamentally, why should not the sellers have any decision making functions? Adhir Singh of Bashkopna, “Panchayat members had told us the Jindal people would discuss with us.” No such thing eventually happened. “We have lost all faith.” Durgapada Hembram of Saldanga, “I am losing 3 acre 45 decimal of land, they did not call me for any discussion.” In the tribal village Arabari, Lakkhi Hasda and Ishshar Hasda, “We don’t want to sell our land. Panchyat chief told us our land would be caught in the middle. There will be walls encircling it. What can we do?”
Bashkopana: multi-crop land, irrigation water, environment and compensation
Another complaint against the Panchayats is, they are showing all the multi-crop land as mono-crop. Ananda Singh of Bashkopna, “None of the villagers call these lands mono-crop. Besides paddy we grow wheat, potatoes, chillies.” On a map Asnashuli villagers show a 50-60 acre area which produces two harvests. “We are ready to sell 100 acres of mono-crop land. But please leave out lands which produce two to three harvests.” Jindal group and Panchayats deny the existence of such lands. Sachindra Bhuiyan declares, “No one would get the two-harvest land price.” Who then decides what is what?
And there are other questions too. Two dams which feed some 400-500 acres have fallen inside the acquired land. Bishwadip Gupta says if the factory has additional water it would be supplied to Kharagpur Development Authority. The responsibility of distributing that is with the KDA. How the villagers will get their irrigation water seems to be nobody’s headache. Neither are the environmental impacts. Villagers are uncertain if their land would remain fertile once polluted water from the factory poisons the ground water. Would their homes remain habitable if ash from the thermoelectric plant starts swarming the locality? What would happen to the share croppers (there are only 28 of them in the register)?
“Money is an empty thing”
Moreover, there are concerns over the land-sale money. Dulal Bhuiyan of Bashkopna, “Our family had two acres. Six lakhs rupees are being distributed among 11 claimants. How shall we survive?” This underlines the fact that land is not merely an asset which can be easily transferred. It is also an important source of livelihood in an unemployment-ridden rural economy. If it’s taken away, without sight of an alternative, people are rendered most vulnerable. Abani Mahato of Asnashuli had got a Rs. 68 thousand cheque and bought a motorbike with Rs. 65 thousands. Many have spent the money in repairing houses. Four to five banks have opened camps in the village. Chit fund agents are frequenting. Ananda Singh of Bashkopna hits the nail on the head, “Money is an empty thing. What we needed we used to get from land. Now we would have to buy shopping bags.”
The hope which is still alive is that they would get jobs. 75 percent of them have not gone past matriculation, there are eight to ten graduates in the entire area. Nevertheless, the work of an unskilled labourer is a dream come true in these villages which do not see more than one week of work a year even after getting the job cards. The party and Panchayat is busy weaving that dream. However, Amulya Singh, chief Kashijora village Panchayat sounds Darwinian when asked about the benefits of industrialisation for the evicted. “People would get jobs according to qualification. This is how man develops through evolution. They would themselves enhance their abilities and prosper.”
Salboni’s missed opportunities, and how the CM helped out
Swati Bhattachrya concludes, Salboni villagers have missed three precious opportunities. One, they have not been able to articulate their demands over compensation package. Two, they could not obtain any infrastructural facility. Three, for their future livelihood and living they have now become dependent on the charity of industrialists. This may take them to the opposite pole of capability. “Amartya Sen remarked that a poor person is one whose likings or dislikings have no value. Industrialisation is reiterating this truth. The final question is therefore on goal and means. If the purpose of development is removal of poverty, empowering the vulnerable, can it be achieved through a process which is against social justice?”
The Anandabazar Patrika need not be so much concerned. The party would take care of acquisition if the government cannot. On 19th September Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was heard expressing ‘doubts’ about the Jindal group’s decision to provide jobs and shares to land-losers. Did he think that the deal had too little on offer for the villagers? Was he concerned that the capitalists would renege on the promises which would leave the evicted in the middle of nowhere? Did he seek a written assurance from the group, which he could then communicate to the dirt-poor of his state whose land he was grabbing at the behest of the rich? Sajjan Jindal assuages our anxieties. “I had discussed the proposal (on jobs and shares) with the chief minister before making it public. He said it was a good concept but he had concerns about its effect on other industries and how they would feel about it.”
It hardly get curiouser than this.
