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| Save farmers from land woes | | |
A farmer’s income depends on his land-holding and its productive capacity. You reduce the size of the land-holding, you proportionally reduce the income of the farmer, as more than 90 per cent of them are not equipped to do anything other than till the land.
In the older Punjab, size of holdings was first reduced to seven and a half hectares, that is roughly 19 acres, for a family comprising five members. The next step that the urbanite, elite ruling class took was to deprive him of his land by forcibly acquiring the same.
The land is acquired for private companies who without exception would exaggerate their requirement and get land many times their requirement. Concerned authorities, for reasons well known, would indulge them and do their bidding.
The private company could take possession of the acquired land only after depositing with the collector the compensation amount awarded by him, which was usually very low.
The owners are then forced to file a reference application to get the measly compensation awarded by the collector enhanced to some extent. The dissatisfied land owner then approaches the High Court in an appeal where high stamp duty, with the court fee proportionate to the claimed enhancement amount, deters him from claiming full market value of his land. A substantial part of compensation gets paid out to the lawyers and is spent on court fee and his traveling expenses.
To his horror, the land is gone and a substantial portion of awarded compensation too is gone. Here are some suggestions to militate against this misery:
If the land is acquired for industrial concerns, then at least one family member of the farmer should be given employment as per his or her qualification. Arrangements to impart training to the wards of such farmers, to enable him or her to acquire skills and competence for more lucrative jobs, must also be made.
Land acquired on payment of ridiculously low amounts of compensation to the farmer is made over to public or private developers to develop residential colonies and industrial zones, who in turn sell the same to private individuals for residential or industrial purposes and charge from them exorbitant prices, at times fifty to hundred times of what has been paid to the farmers. Part of this profit should statutorily be made payable to such farmers according to the measure of land taken from him.
Over and above the compensation amount, 20 per cent thereof should be deposited in a common fund invested in Reserve Bank of India bonds, interest whereof should be distributed annually amongst the erstwhile owners of the acquired land in accordance with the measure of the land acquired from him.
Where the land is acquired for such roads where toll tax is imposed a reasonable percentage of the toll tax should be similarly invested and paid out.
If the land is acquired for commercial or residential purposes, then the compensation amount should be assessed by treating the land as being commercial or residential in character and not as agricultural land.
Such farmers whose land had been acquired should be allotted plots for residential purposes following certain reasonable norms at the price which had been paid to the farmer concerned, plus the development charges, and not at the price which is being charged from the individuals to whom the plots were being sold by the acquiring authority.
The period for giving the award should be reduced from two years to one year and the amount should be paid in one go. The minimum price of the farmers’ produce should be fixed at least 50 per cent above the cost price of his produce taking into account cost of the land, cost of the labour provided by farmers’ family members and other related inputs.
One may legitimately assert that the higher grain price paid to the farmer would increase the market price of the food grain and would adversely affect poorer strata of the society. This can be easily taken care of by subsidising the intake of food grains by the poorer sections of the society and the workers.
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