Mamata intervenes to provide land to industry on easier conditions

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has finally intervened to provide land to industry on easier conditions. The government has removed the ceiling of a maximum 24 acre that an industrial unit could buy in the state directly.

The West Bengal Land Reforms (Amendment) Bill 2012 introduced in the state legislature on Monday rectified the inconsistency, which the government itself created by adopting the policy of ?no government acquisition.?

Under the new law, while the government will still not acquire land for industry, it would also not bar companies from directly purchasing land upto whatever size needed. However this will apply prospectively.

The government position till now was that any holding beyond 24 acre would have to be first vested with the state, which, in turn, would lease out the additional holding to the industrial developer.

But the industry raised questions as to why should the government lease out land if it did not acquire. Further, how far was it a prerogative of the government to vest or own a land, which was directly purchased by an investor. The amendment Bill moved and passed in the assembly by a majority vote on Monday cleared such contradictory provisions through removal of ceiling on industrial land holding.

The Bill says: ? If the state government, after having regard to all circumstances of case and on the basis of project report filed by any person, is satisfied that such person is required land for the purpose of establishing a mill, factory or workshop, livestock breeding farm, poultry farm, dairy, industrial park or industrial hub or industrial estate, financial hub, warehousing, tea garden, agro- industry, power plant or power transmission or distribution substation, film city, tourism project, educational and medical institutions, bio-tech park, food park, port, airport, shipyard including ship building and ship breaking, oil and gas products, transportation, information and communication technology (ICT), ICT industries, mining and allied industries and for the purpose of future expansion? of all the above mentioned projects ?such person may, with the previous permission in writing, of the state government and on such terms and conditions and in such manner as the state government may, by rules prescribe, acquire and hold land in excess of the ceiling area applicable under section 14 M.?

While the bill has not mentioned any upper limit of holding, it has allowed the owner of the land ?to lease out the whole or any part of it with previous permission of the appropriate department of the state government.?

This provision of the bill would allow a developer of any industrial park to lease out land to an entrepreneur willing to set up an industry within the park. The earlier provisions of the Act restricted such moves.

The bill has also allowed owner of the land, except tea garden owners, to sell land ?by way of open auction.?

However, the bill has mentioned that a holder of excess land would be given three years time to set up his project; otherwise the state would take away his land.

Although chief minister Mamata Banerjee, also the state land and land reforms minister, was supposed to move the bill in the assembly, she did not attend the assembly sessions on Monday. State commerce, industry and IT minister Partha Chatterjee instead moved the bill.

Chatterjee told the legislatures, the present government would do legally what the former Left Front government was trying to do illegally. The earlier Left Front government by passing the provisions of the Act transferred land to investors and allowed them excess holding violating various sections of the West Bengal Land Reforms Act, 1955. But the present government has done away with such discrepancies.

The opposition bench said, the bill without any mention of upper limit of holding has made an attempt to bring back zamindari system in the state and has stood against the objective of land reforms carried out by the earlier Left Front government. The bill has also allowed indiscriminate land conversion.

Chatterjee said the committee of ministers headed by Mamata Banerjee would decide on the upper limit of land on case to case basis. Leasing out by private owners would be permitted only for specific purposes.

?We will by no means allow forcible acquisition,? Chatterjee told the assembly.

Opposition leader Surya Kanta Misra moved a motion to refer the Bill to the select committee on the plea that a similar Bill initiated by the Left Front was referred to the select committee and, then, went to the back burner. But his motion was defeated.