Rajasthan is all set to become first State in India to bring in land aggregation through a legal mechanism. This aims to assist industries and help the farmers.
“We will introduce a Bill in the State Assembly and based on that a policy will be in place,” Rajasthan Chief Minister BhajanLal Sharma said when businessline asked about the availability of land for industries in the State. This statement has been made at a time, when the State government is gearing up to organise ‘Rising Rajasthan’ Global Investment Summit in December this year. As a build-up to mega event in December, Sharma led road shows in Mumbai and Delhi during which over ₹12.50 lakh crore worth of MoUs (Memorandum of Understanding) for investment signed.
“The focus of the State government is to not merely to sign MoUs for investment intentions, but to realise them into the projects on the ground,” Sharma said. Policy for ‘Aggregation of Private Land’ under a proposed law is one such incentive. The State government is looking to introduce it before the summit. According to officials, under this, government will aggregate private land from the interested person(s) and develop it. Once the land is developed, the original landowner will get a minimum of 25 per cent of the developed land as compensation. This developed land can be used by the original owner for his own use, or he/she can let out/lease/sell it to third parties to fetch the maximum returns.
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Proposed legislation
Officials explained that the proposed legislation is not only aimed at making land acquisition easier but more than that, it aims to make farmers partners in the development process, wherein they get a portion of the developed land at the same place and by virtue of that, they continue their livelihood activities on the same land. More so, “the value of their portion of the developed land as well as their remaining land (which they have not surrendered with the government) will increase manifolds, thereby increasing their income and earnings multiple times,” an official said.
The proposed legislation envisages that private land for industrial parks/areas, expansion thereof, trunk infrastructure, and other public infrastructure will be developed on either fully private land to be aggregated under this legal framework or partly private land or partly government and partly private land. It provides to set up ‘The Land Aggregation and Development Authority’ as the competent authority for the aggregation of private land and development thereof. This authority will aggregate the private land based on the scheme/projects either conceive suo-moto or request received from any appropriate authority/requiring body.
The aggregated land will be developed in affixed time frame. A total of 5 years has been prescribed to utilise the land by the concerned authority otherwise land will be vested with Land Aggregation Authority. An Appellate Authority shall also be constituted to address landowner grievances efficiently and outside of court. If no one is ready to come up with the proposal of land aggregation, then he or she may retain his/her land.
Officials said that Industries Department has identified certain areas of Rajasthan that can get benefitted through this legislation. For example, it can immensely benefit Banswara, which is an under-developed district having mostly tribal population and is on the Gujrat border. Similarly, areas falling under the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor or Delhi-Mumbai Expressway are also expected to benefit a lot.