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Mann ki Baat: Where has all our land gone? India needs to know

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Tina Edwin
Tina EdwinMar 25, 2015 | 17:00

Mann ki Baat: Where has all our land gone? India needs to know

The Union government and its agencies and departments are the biggest land owners in the country. The railways owns vast tracts of land across the country, in every state and almost every important city and town. The military owns land across the country. The central public-sector enterprises too have significant land holding. For example, the ports trusts have some prime land along the coast.

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But not all of them put land to the best use. As a result, some of their land holding is encroached upon and evicting people is not easy, even for the government. Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured farmers in his latest monthly radio address, Mann ki Baat, that his attempt would be to use government land and barren land for various development and infrastructure projects, and that agricultural land would be acquired only when it is unavoidable. The trouble is no one knows accurately how much land is under the control of the Union government and its agencies, or with each of the state governments and their agencies. Nor does anyone have an accurate estimate of how much of that land can be put to alternate use.

So if the government intends to make good the assurance that it has given to the farmers of this country, it should make a laundry list of all the land it owns and identify portions that can be put to alternate use. The railways, one of the largest land owners, is one of the few to have done that exercise and shared the information with the public. In a recent white paper, the ministry said that it owns 458,589 hectares of land, of which 46,409 hectares are vacant. Most of its vacant land is in the form of narrow strips along tracks, which it says it requires for servicing and maintenance of tracks and other infrastructure. Some of the vacant railway land is also required for network expansion work such as doubling, traffic facilities and factories. According to the ministry, land at 102 sites, measuring 916 hectares, is not required in the foreseeable future and has been handed over to the Rail Land Development Authority (RLDA) for commercial development.

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That apart, several stations and junctions have been identified for redevelopment, matching international standards. One could say that the railways is being very conservative about making use of the land it owns. Why can’t stations in far-flung locations become commercial hubs of the region with new building housing offices, e-governance centres, stores, showrooms, recreation zones and restaurants on the upper floors and the tracks and platforms at the ground level? Nonetheless, a beginning has been made.

The defence services too owns vast tracts of land and it could do well to assess where it can surrender some of that land and develop it for alternate use, for commercial or public good, without compromising on security concerns. Likewise, some prime tracts of land owned by port trusts can also be put to alternate commercial use, including premium housing complexes.

Public sector enterprises, particularly those in the mining industry, own vast tracts of land. Many mines have been closed after years of extraction and such land is ripe for redevelopment. Several Public Sector Units (PSUs) have turned sick, and there is little point in attempting to revive them. Their most valuable asset is land, which can be monetised. Rather than selling such PSUs through the disinvestment process, it makes sense to wind them up, generously compensate the employees who are rendered unemployed, and then auction the premises in a transparent manner at prevailing market rates to another industrial house for setting up new ventures. Many textile mills in Mumbai, for instance, have been redeveloped as commercial complexes - housing offices and recreation zones - over the last 20 years when these mills became unviable.

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The prime minister’s proposal to use barren land may not yield much. According to some estimates, around 13% of India’s land, or about 41 million hectares is barren or put to non-agriculture uses, including over 20 million hectares that are rocky or mountainous. Vast tracts of barren land are deserts and under water. Rail, road network and canals run through a lot of land that is not available for cultivation.

Acquisition of agriculture land for development and infrastructure is inevitable. As India’s economy expands, it cannot afford to have as much as 60 per cent of the population producing less than 15 per cent of the GDP. Preparing people for alternate employment by equipping them with the right skills will lower dependence on agriculture and their need to hold on to small pieces of land.

Last updated: March 25, 2015 | 17:00
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