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Maharashtra Government Statement is Misleading While Advocating Exemption from LARR Act, 2013
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CAG Performance Audits of SEZs Imply Large Scale Land Grab for Profit by Corporations, Land Ordinance will Continue this Legacy
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Eminent Citizens Write to President Requesting Him to Rescind Anti People Land Ordinance
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Resistance to Continue, Protests During the Budget Session
New Delhi, January 7 : Maharashtra
Chief Minister Shri Devendra Fadnavis has demanded that Maharashtra
Industrial Development Act (MIDC) be exempted from the applications of
the provisions of the the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (LAAR) Act, 2013 as reported in the newspapers today. The
reasons cited are not only misleading but also far from the truth on
many count. One of the key factors have been mentioned as the land
required for the implementation of the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor
and that MIDC Act provides better compensation and R&R to farmers
and PAPs and mostly through consent.
We would like to point out that Maharashtra Government is misleading the public on the following points :
1. Compulsory Acquisition under MIDC Act : Section
32 of the MIDC Act mandates that whenever government needs land for
furtherance of the objectives of this Act or for the purpose of
development then a notification shall be issued and before that a show
cause notice will be issued to the farmers, why their land should not be
acquired. Does this sound like seeking consent ? It needs to be
noticed that 9715 families of 69 villages in Maangaon, Roha and Tala
Talukas have received notifications for acquisition of a total of 24,207
acres of land for Dighi Industrial Area as part of DMIC corridorunder
MIDC Act. Armers have been protesting there and State government from
time to time have been saying that they will exempt these villages from
Dighi industrial area but no de-notification notice has been issued yet.
2. Compensation, R&R to Farmers and PAPs :
MIDC Act has no provision for the R&R to PAPs and compensates only
the land owners. MIDC refers to the definition of the land and affected
persons in 1894 Act, which was very limited and didn';t include
livelihood losers when land was acquired for the development projects.
3. Lack of Land for Projects :
There is no shortage of available land in the State. Maharashtra
government has no record of percentage land utilised and unutilised with
MIDC, even though in the past fifty years it has acquired more than 13
lakh acres of land. The provision of MIDC Act is more draconian than
Land Acquisition Act, 1894, which leaves little scope for the consent of
the affected population. Maharashtra government by its own admission has a land bank of 80,000 Hectares with it.
In Aurangabad and nearby
areas there too a large chunk of land under the threat of
acquisition for DMIC. However, in 2000 the Maharashtra Industrial
Development Corporation (MIDC) had acquired 902 hectares of land, but to
what purpose. Those affected by the ‘Jaikwadi'; dam as well as Paithan
MIDC have neither been allotted land in the Command area nor have they
received employment inspite of repeated assurances. Only 50% of the
factories in the MIDC phase-I are operational and apparently they await
for the right time to sell those lands for real estate. The
government is keen on acquiring 10,000 hectares of land belonging to 24
villages to develop the Shendre – Bidkin Industrial Zone under MIDC.
City and Industrial Development Corporation or CIDCO has already made
plans to acquire 15,000 hectares of land belonging to 28 villages.
4. Farmers Suicide in Maharashtra :
It would do good, if Mr. Fadnavis showed some concerns for the farmers
in his home state. With a land bank of 80,000 Hectares, he is only
feeding to the profit hungry Corporations but doing nothing for the
farmers, and already Project Affected Persons due to various irrigation
projects like Waang Marathwadi, Jaikwadi, or Lavasa Hill City project or
other development projects and SEZs. It nees to be mentioned that at
least 3,146 farmers committed suicide in Maharashtra in 2013 as per the
National Crime Record Bureau. Since, 1995, nearly 60,750have committed
suicide and on an average, 3,685 farmers in the state took their lives
every year between 2004 to 2013.What has Mr. Fadnavis done for them ?
CAG
Audit Report on SEZs Exposes the Corporate Land Grab and False Claims
of the Government on Employment Generation and Development
False Claims of Employment Generation and Development : The
claims of the development and employment generation are exposed not
only for the Maharashtra government but for also the Union government,
as pointed out in theCAG report on the performance of the SEZs.
CAG has said that land grab was the only motive behind the SEZs
development and Corporates were given favour in the name of development.
Out of 45635.63 ha of land notified in the country for SEZ purposes,
operations commenced in only 28488.49 ha (62.42 %) of land. In addition,
we noted a trend wherein developers approached the government for
allotment/purchase of vast areas of land in the name of SEZ. In terms
of area of land, out of 39245.56 ha of land notified in the six States
3,5402.22ha (14%) of land was denotified and diverted for commercial
purposes in several cases. Many tracts of these lands were acquired
invoking the ‘public purpose’ clause. Thus land acquired was not serving
the objectives of the SEZ Act.
In four States (Andhra
Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and West Bengal), 11 developers/units
had raised 6309.53 crore of loan through mortgaging SEZ lands. Out of
which, three developers/units had utilized the loan amount (2211.48
crore i.e. 35 per cent of 6309.53 crore) for the purposes other than the
development of SEZ, as there was no economic activity in the SEZs
concerned.
CAG further notes that on
various other counts SEZs failed to achieve their stated objectives. Of
152 SEZs analysed, there was a deficit of 65.95% to 96.58% in employment
generation, for investment 23.98% to 74.92 %, for export 46.16 to
93.81%.
The CAG report only
confirms what we have been saying about the Union government continued
push in facilitating land grab by the corporations for large scale
profit and nothing else. As per the available data from the Union
Budget, 5.32 Lakh Crore (roughly three times the supposed loss in 2G
scam), of corporate tax was forgone. What is the Union government doing for the farmers ?
Eminent Citizens write to President, Prime Minister, Vice President and Speaker, Lok Sabha
17 eminent citizens led by
Justice (Retd) Rajinder Sachar, Harsh Mander, Aruna Roy, V Mohini Giri,
Shanti Bhushan Vandana Shiva and others wrote to the President with Copy
to PM, Vice President, Speaker Lok Sabh and urged that “.. as the
custodians of our Constitution of India, we urgently appeal to you to rethink and reject these Ordinances,
and advise the government to table the contemplated amendments to LAA
2013 in the forthcoming session of Parliament, so that people';s
representatives will be able to democratically discuss the issues
involved.”
They further added that the
LARR 2013 was a progressive legislation which, without being against
industries and projects, from public to private, gave farmers and
land-losers a measure of control over their lives. It took cognizance of
the fact that time has come to protect prime agricultural land and
minimise displacement. The British legacy had to be left behind. The
current Ordinance negates or dilutes what has been achieved by years of
sustained efforts by people and initiative by pro-people politicians to
get LARR 2013 enacted.
Resistance to Continue, Protests During the Budget Session
We reiterate that the
people';s movements would not allow this corporate design of the
government to succeed and any bid to forcibly acquire land will face
stiff resistance across the country. We will challenge every move of the
government to hand over precious resources to the Corporate Houses in
the name of “Make in India” initiative. This initiative is solely aimed
at naked loot and promoting Crony Capitalism in the country. Our
affiliate members in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar,
Jharkhand, Odisha and other states have already lodged their protest
rejecting the ordinance. We will continue to expose the government and
Corporate loot and mobilise all progressive forces along with the
people';s movements during the Budget Session.
Medha Patkar – Narmada Bachao Andolan and the National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM); Prafulla Samantara – Lok Shakti Abhiyan & Lingraj Azad – Niyamgiri Suraksha Samiti, NAPM, Odisha; Dr. Sunilam, Aradhna Bhargava – Kisan Sangharsh Samiti & Meera – Narmada Bachao Andolan, NAPM, MP; Suniti SR, Suhas Kolhekar, Prasad Bagwe – NAPM, Maharashtra; Gabriel Dietrich, Geetha Ramakrishnan – Unorganised Sector Workers Federation, NAPM, TN; C R Neelkandan – NAPM Kerala; P Chennaiah & Ramakrishnan Raju – NAPM Andhra Pradesh, Arundhati Dhuru, Richa Singh - NAPM, UP; Sister Celia – Domestic Workers Union & Rukmini V P, Garment Labour Union, NAPM, Karnataka; Vimal Bhai – Matu Jan sangathan & Jabar Singh, NAPM, Uttarakhand; Anand Mazgaonkar, Krishnakant - Paryavaran Suraksh Samiti, NAPM Gujarat; Kamayani Swami, Ashish Ranjan – Jan Jagran Shakti Sangathan & Mahendra Yadav – Kosi Navnirman Manch, NAPM Bihar; Faisal Khan, Khudai Khidmatgar, NAPM Haryana; Kailash Meena, NAPM Rajasthan; Amitava Mitra & Sujato Bhadra, NAPM West Bengal; B S Rawat – Jan Sangharsh Vahini & Rajendra Ravi, Madhuresh Kumar and Kanika Sharma– NAPM, Delhi
