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(Annaji Attacking Land Ordnance - Edited Image Courtesy: Congress Party)
 
Political posturing by different parties as saviours of farmers’ land is hurting growth and jobs prospects.
Posturing has overshadowed the hurdles erected by government entities to delay and discourage developmental projects. The entities do so by flaunting their regulatory turf even as they merrily cede land to Slum Lords and squatters.
The obstructing entities include Ministry of Environment and Forest (MOEF), Department of Space, Department of Culture, Ministry of Tribal Affairs, defence forces and the authorities that maintain large swaths of government prime land in urban areas.
If we take the collective impact of all such constraints, then we can virtually write off forever the prospects for optimum harnessing of natural resources. Similar would be the case with ‘Make in India’ Initiative (M3I), which has been launched to reverse the alarming decline in share of manufacturing in the gross domestic product (GDP) during the last two decades.
  
The Government should have come out with a comprehensive report on the impact of interplay of all factors on cost competitiveness of Indian projects in globalized economy. If it is prohibitively expensive & cumbersome to set up projects, then the flight of capital from India to overseas projects cannot be reduced. Similarly, the actual inflow of FDI, as distinct from FDI approvals, would decline due to unfavourable project economics.  
Before discussing the overlooked constraints with specific instances, an update on land acquisition row would be apt.
The right to fair compensation and transparency in land acquisition, rehabilitation and resettlement Act, 2013 (RFCT-LARR Act) is the pivot on which growth & social justice narrative hinges.  News stories suggest that BJP-led NDA Government has staged a major climb-down before Select Committee from the amended law pushed through ordinance route. 
The Committee’s report and the Government’s response would finally indicate how much pride it has swallowed over its ham-handed process of legislating through Ordinance.  It compounded the Ordinance mistake by failing to produce a cogent consultative paper on all factors linked to land that is holding up national development. It allowed Congress to create a groundswell of dissent against arbitrariness in amending UPA’s flagship law. Ironically, maximum cheating of farmers was done by States under UPA policies especially under the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) framework. 
The other day NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Arvind Panagariya stated: “The Land Act, 2013 is an onerous Act under which by all calculations it will take up to five years for acquiring land assuming that all steps progress smoothly.”
Much before the enforcement of RFCT-LARR Act in 2014, land acquisition had become a herculean task for many projects. And it would remain so due to demography-driven demand for space from different segments of society. 
Growth would always remain constrained by population burden. Growth is already becoming a casualty under the weight of rights of different interests group overshadowing the national interests. Aborted mining and hydel power projects bear testimony to marginalization of national interests by Governments that don’t mind caving in under pressure of all sorts of activism.  
Two categories of land problems that have no correlation with RFCT-LARR Act would help illustrate the ground realty. 
Take the case of Goa Government’s proposal to set up a greenfield international airport. It analyzed three alternative sites in 1996 with smallest being 1000-acre plot and largest one spread over 4500 acres. The area of later site at Mopa has now been reduced to 2271 acres due to challenges in land acquisition and relief and rehabilitation (R&R).
MOEF’s Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC), which extended the validity of terms of reference for this project in March 2015 noted: “Due to delay in land acquisition, finalization of project details, the EIA could be completed in December, 2014 only.”
Goa, which is global tourist hot spot, thus does not have space to set up a large international airport. Down the years, the land constraint would lead to airport constraint, which, in turn, would stunt the growth of tourism. 
The story is similar for certain other greenfield international airports such as one at Navi Mumbai and another at Dholera in Gujarat. Same is the case with certain sea ports. Similar is the case with many mining and industrial projects. 
The process for acquisition land for all such projects was initiatied/completed under Raj-era land acquisition law, which has been exploited by State Governments to favour cronies including the ones who are given discretionary allotment of residential plots.  
The report from ground zero is that India has missed opportunity to set up world-class infrastructure projects due to population overload and the resulting cut-throat competition for space from all stakeholders of society. 
Take now the second category of land constraint that is hurting the mandatory requirement of compensatory afforestation (CA). In this category falls the case of Tata Power Company Limited (TPCL’s) 220KV Trombay Dharavi Salsette Transmission Line. MOEF granted coastal regulatory zone clearance to this project in May 2011 with the stipulation that TPCL would plant about 25,000 mangrove saplings as compensatory plantation to offset unavoidable destruction of 1607 mangroves caused by project.
The company selected 13.83 hectares land at Trombay for CA. In December 2011, TPCL’s consultant, Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) concluded that the site selected for mangrove cultivation was not suitable. It advised the company to identify an alternative location.
After extensive field visits to different sites in association with officials of State Forest Department, TCL managers finally located a 25-acre site at village Sarsole in Navi Mumbai where they intend to cultivate three lakh mangroves in three phases.  
In a letter to MOEF submitted in June 2015, TPCL has sought MOEF’s approval for change of mangrove plantation from Trombay to Sarsole in Thane district where the plantation work on the first phase of its mangrove park has been initiated.   
Like TPCL, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) and many other companies have faced hassles in undertaking CA. They have to mandatory take up such green projects to compensate for loss of trees on non-forest land and/or acquisition of forest land. 
The project developers, who cannot undertake CA, deposit specified amount of money in ‘Compensatory Afforestation Fund’ (CAF). It is managed by MOEF’s Compensatory Afforestation Management Funds Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA)
Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), in its report on 'Compensatory Afforestation in India' submitted in September 2013, has documented the land hassles in the way of CA. 
As put by CAG, “To be able to undertake compensatory afforestation on equivalent area of non-forest land, such land needs to be received by the Government. The Ministry's records revealed that against the receivable non-forest land of 1,03,381.91 hectare, 28,086 hectare was received during the period 2006-12 which constituted only 27 per cent of receivable non-forest land.”
It continues: “The compensatory afforestation done over the non-forest land received was an abysmal 7,280.84 hectare constituting seven per cent of the land which ought to have been received. The afforestation over the degraded forest land was done only on 49,733.76 hectare and 49 km out of 1,01,037.35 ha and 54.5 km identified which worked out to 49 per cent (in area).”
CAG found that Seven States viz. Gujarat, Haryana, Kerala, Maharashtra, Meghalaya, Punjab and Rajasthan carried out no CA either over non-forest land or over degraded forest land. 
This depressing greenery scenario emerged much before the enactment of RFCT-LARR Act. The continuing flux over this Act makes it difficult to gauge its impact on development projects. Whatever be the final shape of the Act, it must provide for upfront rehabilitation and compensation of project-affected families. To make land purchases for M3I, the governments and industries should first create smart habitat centres (SHCs) for such families. SHCs should also facilitate work opportunities for such families. 
The Act must mandatorily provide for vertical development of buildings and even factories wherever possible. 
Consider now projects-throttling factors that have no correlation with RFCT-LARR Act. The most pernicious  factor is  the creeping and ‘deeming squatting’ of thousands of square kilometres of land by MOEF under Environment Protection Act (EPA) 1986. It is posing the biggest threat to growth & jobs. 
MOEF’s ‘dog-in-the-manger squatting’ is effected under the garb of 1) declaring certain areas as eco-sensitive zones (ESZ) around wildlife sanctuaries, national parks, etc, 2) declaring certain forests as hot spots of biodiversity and 3) earmarking certain forests as no-go/inviolate areas and 4) creating coastal regulating zoning restrictions. 
This ever-increasing turf for environmental activism is shrinking the space for housing, poverty alleviation, farming, infrastructure projects and industries. MOEF is thus contributing to land acquisitions tensions under RFCT-LARR Act.
Put simply, the opportunity to acquire land for development works has been almost smothered by the combined might of EPA 1986, Forest (Conservation) Act 1980, The Indian Forest Act, 1927, The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act popularly referred to as Forest Rights Act and Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972.
Turn to security concerns of strategic government entities that limit or deny access to companies to explore mineral wealth lock in the land or under the sea. 
Take the case of Cairn India Limited (CIL)-ONGC-Tata Petrodyne JV which bagged offshore block PR-OSN-2004/1 in 2007 under New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP)-VI round bidding. 
The CIL-led JV secured environmental clearance (EC) to drill 10 exploration & appraisal wells in this block, which is part of the Palar basin. The block is located in the Bay of Bengal in the continental shelf area along the coast of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. The Department of Space (DOS) imposed drilling restrictions on account of security concerns for Sriharikota (SHAR) Range for launch of spacecraft. This, in turn, led JV to invoke force majeure in October, thereby delaying oil and gas exploration work. The security concerns led to shrinking of accessible block area by 40% to about 5617 square kilometer. One key hydrocarbon prospect fell inside the restricted zone close to the northern boundary.
The JV revoked force majeure in early 2015 following DOS agreeing to shifting of northern boundary of the ‘prohibited area’ seven kilometers to facilitate drilling. On 4th August 2015, CIL, on behalf of JV, applied for extension of validity of EC for five years. 
CIL-led JV is not an isolated case.  In 2012, Australia’s BHP invoked force majeure in 10 western offshore blocks due to delay in security clearance by Naval authorities. 
Of these, seven were JVs with GVK oil & Gas Limited, which is a subsidiary of GVK Power & Infrastructure Limited (GPIL). 
According to GPIL annual report for 2013-14, GVK-BHP JV could not complete stipulated exploration work in six of these blocks (MB blocks) “due to denial of access by the Indian Navy, resulting in Force Majeure.” The JV surrendered these blocks to the Government in January 2014 in view of “access problem.” The 7th one, a Kerala Konkan block, was also surrendered on account of low prospectivity. 
As regards three remaining Mumbai offshore blocks in which BHP held 100% stake, BHP’s annual report for 2014 stated: “Due to the inability to gain unencumbered access to explore and produce hydrocarbons in these blocks we have notified the government of our intent to exit and are currently awaiting government approval.”
All this discussion shows that land access challenges are far more complex and varied than the oversimplified issue of safeguarding rights of farmers and tribals.
This brings us to the need for formulating a holistic land use policy as well restraining Government entities that are denying project developers access to land and sea on security, environmental and other considerations. 
                                                         
Published by taxindiaonline.com on 7th August 2015
 
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