Ashok Mishra
The second method is heavy commission of middlemen and manipulation of papers. The new policy stops land mafia at many levels. Firstly, it is a completely voluntary acquisition and not a forced acquisition. When the government is not taking force then there is no need for the farmer to panic and sell cheaply. In this, the transaction takes place directly through the registration of sale deed. Rs 1 lakh per acre of interim assistance goes directly into the account of the land owner every year. If the money is not received within 15 days, there is a rule to pay nine percent annual interest, so that the money is not wasted in between.
The commission of the land aggregator i.e. the person collecting the land has been fixed, he will get only 0.5 percent of the collector rate of the concerned revenue estate and that too will be given by the development agency, not the farmer. Now land pooling can be understood in this way. The government does not take the farmer's land forever by paying a fixed compensation, rather the farmer voluntarily gives his land to the pool for a big project. The government or its development agency develops that entire land by creating facilities like roads, electricity, water, sewerage etc.
Then it returns a part of that developed land to the farmer. This is not a forced acquisition, this is a partnership. In the new policy, the same partnership formula has been decided that 50 percent of the total salable area of the approved layout plan will be given to the land owners who gave the land and 50 percent will be with the development agency. Earlier there was a complicated provision of linking this 50 percent to the market price, which has now been removed and made directly on the basis of salable area so that there is transparency.
The biggest benefit from this policy is to farmers and small and big land owners. They not only get developed plots whose market value is several times higher than their raw land, but also get interim financial assistance of Rs 1 lakh per acre every year for four years, i.e. a total of Rs 4 lakh in four years. Also, small owners have also been taken care of. Those whose contribution is less than 999 square meters will get compensation based on the developed plot as per the Land Acquisition Act 2013 or the reserve price, whichever is higher. Those whose contribution is more than 2000 square meters will get residential or industrial plots as well as commercial plots in the form of kiosks or booths.
The minimum plot size is also fixed, 100 square meters for residential, 250 square meters for industrial and 500 square meters for institutional. The second benefit is to the government and development authorities. They get relief from the burden of farmers' protests, years-long lawsuits in courts and huge compensation amount for land acquisition and the land is available without dispute. The third benefit is to the general public and the development of the state, because when land is easily available, projects will be completed on time. To ensure this, in the new policy the time limit for completing the project has been reduced from five years to four years. If the agency does not complete the work on time, the land will be returned to the land owner.
If land pooling was not allowed, the loss would have been at many levels. The government would again have to resort to the Forceful Land Acquisition Act, which often resulted in conflicts between farmers and the government over compensation, agitations and cases stuck in courts for years. This would have stalled residential and industrial projects in fast growing cities like Gurugram, Faridabad, Sonipat. The farmer received only a one-time fixed compensation, which was often lower than the market rate, and he did not get any benefit from the huge increase in the price of the land after it was developed, thus destroying his economic security.
