Sreelatha Menon: Title is everything

Business Standard, Aug 18, 2007

EAR TO THE GROUND
Sreelatha Menon / New Delhi August 19, 2007
Who owns the land for which there is no title? It should be like asking who owns the Ganges or the Arabian Sea? Though Russia recently staked a claim on the North Pole, this cannot apply to all.

In India, where land acquisition for industrial and real estate development has been widespread, the Land Acquisition Act makes the government the master of all that it surveys, except the land for which people have ownership records.

Nothing belongs to the community. It either belongs to individuals, industry or the government. The government is free to acquire land and give it to whoever it likes. A group of ministers (GoM) is studiously exploring the possibility of the government acquiring at least 30 per cent land required for special economic zones. So where does this leave the community?

Phulme Majhi, a Dungria Jharna tribal from Lanjigarh in Orissa’s Kalahandi district, had a title for two acres. He, however, used to grow millets, tubers, pineapples and other crops on six acres that was shared by the community. When Vedanta Alumina set up its refinery in the Niyamgiri hills — which the tribals there consider sacred — it bought his two acres for Rs 2 lakh. The remaining, for which no one had any title, was lost. The government just gave it to Vedanta.

Now, Phulme, who was living amid plenty all these years has to survive on less than Rs 2,000 a month, the interest he gets from the Rs 2 lakh he got for his land.

Besides community land, what he and the 112 villages in the Niyamgiri hills in the Lanjigarh block have lost is the sacred mountain, which also houses rare plants and animals.

The Gods of Niyamagiri have no title deeds, just like the tribals who worship them, and cannot escape evacuation, at least till the Forest Dwellers Act gets enforced in states by next year.

But villagers in Haryana are not roaming tribals and have title deeds for the land that they own. In Jhajjar and Gurgaon districts, Reliance Industries Ltd is acquiring land for an SEZ, which company executives proudly say will be a township like Chandigarh.

The villagers here should not be complaining like Phulme Majhi for they are getting Rs 22 lakh per acre. Yet no one is celebrating. In Narsinghpura village in Gurgaon where all 3,000 acres of farm land has been acquired, villagers are sad as the land outside the zone is selling for several crores.

In Chandu village, people have refused to sell for this reason. They are, however, resigned to the inevitable — that their land will be acquired by the government. In the village, a school teacher, Rajender, has entered into an interesting deal with the company. He has given his land on lease for five years. He gets around Rs 1 lakh a month as rent. He is happy.

The GoM, which is losing sleep over the government’s inability to help industry acquire land for SEZs while keeping the people happy, might as well consider something like this. Let panchayats and individuals give land on lease. Of course this won’t prevent adverse cultural and environmental impact of the present industrial expansionism, a corporate revival similar to the expansionist aspirations of the medieval dynasties. For that, the environment ministry and state governments should start enforcing the law of the land.