REFORMS: CABINET COMMITTEE ON INVESTMENTS AND LAND ACQUISITION BILL: A VIEWPOINT

Cabinet committee of Government of India cleared two much hyped reforms, namely the formation of cabinet committee on investments chaired by the prime minister and the land acquisition bill. The two measures are in response to policy paralysis tag on the government and only time will tell about the efficacy of these measures in sorting out the problems faced by the infrastructure sector as also the growth of heavy industry.

Cabinet committee on investments under the chairmanship of prime minister is nothing new and has been in existence since Jun 2009 in the garb of cabinet committee on infrastructure and nothing worthwhile came out of it. This only suggests that the will to do something concrete in giving fast track clearances to various projects is simply not there and clearances are being delayed because of environment concerns, Adivasi land concerns etc. We as a nation should understand that the mineral resource location does not obey the dictates of anyone and it is for the government to act as a competent facilitator and find ways and means in a fast track mode to help the nation reap the fruits of mineral based commodities. It must understand the exigencies of national priorities. Strangely there has been little coordination among various ministries, so much so that the all important topmost priority sector of power also has been a victim of such apathy. We have the power plants ready but the fuel is not there to run them and transmission lines are not there to take this power to the end user. Sadly the country is sitting on 50000 mw of idle power generation capacity due to these counts only. In fact projects of Rs 1.8 lakh crores are stuck up due to delays in various clearances. Unless and until the gentlemen at the helm of the affairs do not subscribe to the philosophy of " Finding out ways and means of how to do a thing instead of how not to do it " nothing is going to change. 

Land acquisition bill is only at concept stage and requires passage through both the houses of the Indian parliament. No doubt it has given the land owners a lot of bargaining power to ensure hefty compensation  if and when they agree to part with their land. Only the government projects can acquire land without approval of stake holders whereas projects in private and public private partnership in industry and infrastructure sectors will require approval from 80% and 70%  stakeholders respectively. But for any nation the path to prosperity mandates massive urbanization and massive land acquisitions are going to take place for developing new towns and cities as well as growth of existing ones. It is also likely that more and more people will be sucked into realty business. That means anybody having a few acres of land on the periphery of a city will like to become a developer and builder. We have seen this in the case of villages engulfed in a growing city which are allowed to develop haphazardly in the name of integration without bothering for concepts of town planning and architecture. The same thing is witnessed along the periphery of all towns and cities. I don't think we have rules and regulations ready for this kind of an eventuality. This land acquisition bill when passed will only lead the country to development of haphazard conglomerates of brick houses with slum like infrastructure and facilities.