Economic
Highlights
New Delhi, 28
December 2020
Highways & Farmers
CORPORATE LAND GRAB!
By Shivaji Sarkar
Farmers across the country have a lot more of
their plate than just the present agitation. They are losing more to roads and
highways or expressways than the mere MSP guarantee they are demanding or
repeal of the Centre’s three farm laws. The ten new expressways proposed around
the country and industrial corridors would be creating land sharks by
acquisition of at least 25 per cent of more farm lands than required for each
project and it can lead to enormous disaster and financial mess.
Former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s
Golden Quadrilateral highway dream project was for a specific purpose— bolstering
the country’s infrastructure. But sadly it has degraded into a land-grabbing
movement. The rouge of infrastructure building is virtually a sham if the
Agra-Noida JP Infratech Yamuna expressway (YE) is taken as a test case. It has
3500 acre of the 6177 acre acquired unutilised – 56.6 per cent. The 165 km road
itself as per calculations needed no more than 4500 acre. In fact, the project
conceptualised by Uttar Pradesh government in 2001 emerged as the model for
grabbing people’s land for private profits. All subsequent road projects
virtually have emulated it to create a new zamindari,
a fear expressed at a national discussion at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi on
freeing urban and rural ceilings in 1994.
Now on December 21, 2020, YE industrial
development authority (Yeida) CEO Arun Vir Singh says that it has notified
256,862 hectares (6.3 lakh acre) for development and has acquired 12,481
hectares (30841acre) for various developmental projects – all of that is
agriculture or wetland – in Gautam Buddh Nagar, Aligarh, Mathura and Agra.
The project also busts the myth that the public
sector is inefficient. As huge tract of land is acquired by JP Infratech and it
gets into Rs 6500 crore debt to settle the tangle public sector National
Buildings Construction Corporation Ltd (NBCC) is roped in. How much the public
sector has lost for rescuing the prime acquirers and some others like Amrapali
needs to be assessed. It is also a case of where thousands of home seekers have
lost their life’s savings amounting to thousands of crore.
The NBCC in turn has told the public sector
banks to raise about Rs 2,000 crore against the expressway and provide half of
the amount (Rs 1,000 crore) to the State-owned company, which would utilise the
fund for upfront payment and kick-start construction. The NBCC will not repay
the loans in cash but would give 100 per cent equity to lenders (banks). So it
is people’s deposits that are being put to speculative risks with uncertain
chances of return.
There is a myth in western UP that the
compensation, peanuts as per market valuation, has improved quality of life of
the farmer families as the project displaced them with “rich” benefits. It does
not assess the fact that the loss it has caused to farm production, greenery
and increased pollution in the National Capital Region (NCR) fall in quality of
life farm families. Many have squandered it away or just been reduced to
labourers. Large slums have started growing.
It’s also a wonder why after a few years of
the start of the project NBCC has to step in. The project is virtually
financially, ecologically and socially an example of how a company can botch up
a simple issue for its greed.
The JP Infratech has 3500 acre of land of the
6177 acre acquired unutilized. This is now being told to NBCC to acquire and
manage. Is the public sector a hospital to rescue a private company that has
caused untold human, financial and ecological hazard at stone’s throw from the
national Capital?
The toll roads are not masterpieces of Indian
civilization. The national highways to Chandigarh, Jaipur, Aligarh and hosts of
others across the country are instances of how bad potholed roads have been
levied toll to fleece people. The chain of toll roads in NCR –
Kundli-Manesar-Palwal, Delhi-Aligarh, Delhi-Meerut, Delhi Baghpat, Delhi-
Hardwar, Delhi-Hapur-Moradabad, eastern Peripheral Highway, Delhi-Saharanpur
highway are instances of dumping huge costs on the NCR farmers and businesses
and adding to inflation that causes concern to RBI. Each of these is built on
farmers’ lands acquired for peanuts to bolster profits.
Each toll road has become synonymous with
unending loot. The DND – or the Noida toll bridge lost the toll status at the
intervention of the court as it had recovered more than it had invested on
construction and maintenance in three years. Wonder that has not become the
standard for awarding future such roads. Now the licence for toll collection is
being given for 30 to 36 years – more than a generation. One such emerging
monopoly belongs to an influential politician and many others also have similar
connections in every region.
Minister for Road Transport & Highways Nitin
Gadkri says India has now the second largest road network of expressways and
highways. It is expanding at 30 km of road building a day. But he ignores the
World Bank (WB) report of February 2020 on Roads in India that says the country
has one of the worst roads and has the highest road crashes killing 1.5 lakh people
a year and injuring or maiming more than five times. (The YE is supposedly the
most accident prone. The conditions of state highways are far worse).
The WB says it costs the economy between three
to five per cent of GDP, almost Rs 7 lakh crore. India’s real GDP at constant
prices (2011-12) is 140.78 lakh crore in 2018-19, as per ministry of statistics
and programme implementation.
So for corporate greed the country is
building unsafe roads and people are being saddled with huge costs and
increasing insurance premium. What started as loss to farmers has engulfed the
entire society and the profits of the perpetrators are increasing. The
unnecessary supposedly high security plates for 26 crore vehicles are boosting
their profits by a minimum of Rs 10,000 crore and displacing lakhs of mohalla
level poor number plate makers across the country. This monopolisation is
another bane.
Greed is not only driving out the farmers but
also various poor workers around him who has been subsisting on farm
activities. The country needs to study the phenomenon and act to prevent the
situation from further aggravating.
The loss of arable land for a scramble of
“bad development” can be socially and politically disastrous. The mad game for
acquisition of fertile land must stop and the government has to look back to
have a holistic agriculture and growth (not development) policy.---INFA
(Copyright,
India News & Feature Alliance)
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