IT is a tough journey along the potholed road to Dankaur in western Uttar Pradesh. The road that leads to some of the biggest agricultural villages in the State is in dire need of attention, but it is the proposed eight-lane expressway nearby, which aims to reduce the travel time from the national capital of New Delhi to the historical town of Agra, that gets it. They stand to lose their cultivable land for this road.
The Yamuna Expressway, as it is called, has been caught in controversies ever since it was planned in 2007. Several opposition parties had raised doubts about the number of villages it would displace. But the actual figures emerged only after the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) government used its emergency powers to acquire land from Greater Noida to Agra.
To some people, this betrayed an unseemly hurry by the State government to act on behalf of a private company, JP Infratech Ltd, which has landed the contract for the construction of the expressway and the right to collect toll on it for 36 years. Evidently, the initial uproar in political circles translated into large-scale agitation among farmers who were to lose most of the cultivable land to the ambitious project. Adding fuel to the fire, the State government went ahead with another series of land acquisition for a hi-tech city comprising industrial parks, residential colonies, shopping malls, schools and hospitals to be built around the expressway.
The farmers' movement against the project in this 165-kilometre stretch gathered steam, and in a few places turned violent, following the announcement of the hi-tech city. While mostly small farmers lost their land in the expressway project, it was big farmers who were affected by the hi-tech city. As a result, the Jats and Thakurs, big farmers of the area, took the mantle of leadership against the project. The Jatavs and Dalits, who worked as agricultural labourers in these fields, gave them their full support.
The Rs.9,500-crore expressway project will need 43,000 hectares of land. As many as 1,191 villages have been notified for the project. The hi-tech city is expected to affect nearly seven lakh people and 334 villages in six districts – Noida, Bulandshahr, Aligarh, Mathura, Agra and Mahamaya Nagar (Hathras). The average land holding in this area is two to four hectares.
Mahendra Singh, a Jat farmer in Motena village of Greater Noida, brings out the irony well: “The government is building all this in the name of infrastructure development. The village roads have not been repaired for the past five years. To sell our crops or to do any kind of business we have to spend a whole day to commute just 20 kilometres. The expressway is for the people of the city who already have a highway to Agra. And here we are about to lose all our lands. These were double-crop lands and among the largest producers of wheat and paddy in the State. The government is offering us a measly sum. But we do not want compensation. We were self-sufficient and we want the government to ensure us a proper livelihood.”
The government has no comprehensive policy of compensation and randomly decides the land prices. Until 2008, the farmers got anything between Rs.250 and Rs.400 a square metre. In 2008, Ghori Bachera, a Rajput-dominated village in Greater Noida, stood up in protest, and following this the government doubled the price. Farmers in Mathura and Agra followed suit and got themselves a better deal.
But it was a violent protest in Tappal village in Aligarh district in 2010 that catapulted the farmers' struggle in Uttar Pradesh into a political issue. Following this, the State government was compelled to frame a profit-sharing model with the farmers, but the policy is yet to see the light of day. Thereafter, Bhatta and Parsaul villages in Greater Noida saw another violent protest, which became a huge political issue (“Fight for land”, Frontline, June 3, 2011).
The Ganga Expressway
Similar is the case of the Ganga Expressway, a public-private partnership project with JP Infratech. This highway seeks to link Greater Noida in western Uttar Pradesh and Ballia in eastern Uttar Pradesh, a stretch of 1,047 km. To be built at an estimated cost of Rs.40,000 crore, it requires more than 10,000 ha and will displace more than 5,000 villages. But the project is on hold as it has not got environment clearance because of opposition from environment groups and farmers across the State.
Just as the Yamuna Expressway, this project too is expected to have a hi-tech city. The government's economic logic of expressway-driven projects is primarily infrastructure development, an area in which Uttar Pradesh has been lagging behind many other northern States despite it being the largest in terms of area. However, there is no comprehensive plan of rehabilitation and resettlement in the State.
“Because there is no comprehensive plan and because farmers of each area are getting different treatment in terms of prices, they are encouraged to feel that only if they protest, non-violently or violently, will the government give them a better package,” says Sudhir Panwar of the Kisan Jagriti Manch. Howsoever better it may sound, this is much less than the market prices.
The State government has used the controversial “public interest” clause in the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, for acquiring land. But “public interest” in Uttar Pradesh seems in no way close to people's interests. For example, the government offered Rs.880 a square metre following the protest in Tappal, which is close to Delhi and Noida, where the market rate was over Rs.25,000 a square metre.
Similar land struggles are on in Mirzapur, where the JP group has planned a cement factory. Anger is also rising in Sonabhadra district, where a power plant is coming up, and in Kushinagar, where Chief Minister Mayawati has plans to make a Buddha Circuit airport. The previous Samajwadi Party government had also met with resistance when it acquired land to build four prisons, in Shahjahanpur, Azamgarh, Jaunpur and Moradabad.
In such a context, the courts have come to the rescue of the farmers. In a major embarrassment to the Mayawati government, the Allahabad High Court struck down in May notifications issued for the acquisition of more than 100 ha of land in Gautam Buddha Nagar district for “planned industrial development” in Greater Noida. While allowing a bunch of writ petitions filed by the residents of Shahberi village in the district, the court remarked that “the entire action of acquiring the land was a colourable exercise of powers”.
“The Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority [GNIDA] was fully aware and was planning to use the land in village Shahberi and neighbouring villages for multi-storey housing complexes to be developed by builders on relaxed conditions… on the one hand, a request was made for acquiring the land for public purpose for planned industrial development and on the other hand, a few days before the proposals were put up before the State government for issuing notification (dated 9.11.2009)... the GNIDA, without informing the State government, held the Board's meeting for converting the land use for residential purposes to lease off the land to builders for housing complexes for earning profits,” the court noted.
It further said: “The land is proposed to be acquired at the rate of about Rs.850 per square metre and to be given, within a month, to the builders at Rs.10,000 per square metre and that too on payment of 5 per cent of the price, on allotment.” The court asked the GNIDA to hand the acquired land back to the farmers and allowed the oustees to file cases against the Authority.
In another judgment in January, the Supreme Court quashed the land acquisition made by the previous Samajwadi Party government to construct prisons and asked the present government to return the land to the original owners.
The widespread farmers' agitation has forced the Uttar Pradesh government to disallow further use of emergency powers in land acquisition for these projects. However, as the movement is spreading to different parts of the State, it remains to be seen how the government will solve the conflict between the State's infrastructure development plans and the aspirations of the farming community, which has got the full support of Dalits, who form Mayawati's core support base.
HARYANAT.K. Rajalakshmi in Rohtak
IN the aftermath of the agitation by farmers in Bhatta and Parsaul villages in Greater Noida, the Haryana government's land acquisition policy was hailed as the best in the country. The policy envisages a revision of minimum floor rates of land as notified in April 2007 by the government; introduction of a “no-litigation incentive” for landowners who opted to accept the compensation award; and a revision of the basic rates of annuity coupled with an annual increase “to make it more meaningful as a means of social security for the landowners”. It recognises two broad categories of infrastructure projects for acquisition of land and addresses the concerns of landless persons and artisans in a village community whose livelihoods depend on agricultural operations. The policy also includes “making arrangements for professional advice to landowners for prudent investment of the compensation amount with various options”.
The policy, introduced in November 2010, lays down floor rates in different parts of the State for acquisition of land under the Land Acquisition Act. This has been praised as giving the best deal to farmers. But there is a simmering discontent among farmers, which is visible in several parts of the State
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