The Planning Commission wants independent valuers to determine land prices since governments do not pay fair prices for the land they acquire.
Santosh Mehrotra, senior consultant of the Planning Commission, said here on Tuesday that both the Union and state governments determine compensationary land prices on the basis of costs reflected in the registry documents of land deals for a three-year period. He was present at the annual general meeting of the Confederation of Indian Industries (eastern region).
Very often the registry document shows a cost much lower than the original one of a deal in order to avoid higher stamp duties.
Mehrotra said this does not reflect the market value of land and the owner ends up getting a much lower price in case of government acquisition.
“Even in small democracies like Thailand, independent valuers determine land prices when it comes to acquisition. But, India did not have a proper relief and rehablitation policy till 2007,” Mehrotra said.
He said the new R&R policy of 2007, which has also been proposed in the form of a Bill in Parliament, has solicited for minimising large scale displacement, made social impact analysis mandatory and asked to set a timeframe for implementing rehabilitation package. But there is no policy recommendation that asks the package to be set following market dynamics.
The Planning Commission is insisting that the Union and the state governments engage independent valuers to determine land prices and that the job of valuers are institutionalised, Mehrotra said.
He said India has been 60 years late so far as having a proper relief and rehablitation policy is concerned. Cost of land and rehabilitating people affected by projects is lower in India compared with China.
Even as the Chinese government compels project developers to give handsome compensations to affected persons, there had been 51,000 agitations in the last year alone to prevent land acquisition, Mehrotra said.
He said India has around 145 million hectares of arable land, of which only 5 hectares has been acquired so far for industrial use, mostly by governments. But with industrialistion set to grow at a high pace and related infrastructure even at a higher speed, the government and private entrepreneurs would acquire land at random.
Without a comprehensive and satisfactory R&R policy, land acquisition will be a critical affair and the pace of growth will slow down. Owing to problems in acquiring land, only 14% of the total MoUs signed in India in the last five years have been materialised, Mehrotra said.
Jharkhand deputy chief minister Sudhir Mahato, Orissa energy minister SN Patro and Chhattisgarh minister of state for commerce & industry Rajesh Munat, who were present at the AGM, said their governments are moving ahead with respective R&R policies.