Abstract
The Land Acquisition Act 1894 was comprehensively amended in 2013 which, among others, provided for prior consent of land owners in cases of acquisition for private companies and public partnerships, social impact assessment of all projects requiring land acquisition and restrictions on acquisition of irrigated agricultural land to accommodate some of the concerns of people affected by land acquisition. The ordinance promulgated in 2014 nullifies them to make land available to project authorities without hassles with a view to promoting growth. The changes carried out clearly demonstrate the clout of the industry in public policy making. Farmers and others dependent upon land for livelihood lose out in this contest of power.
Keywords
Development paradigm pursued since independence has induced considerable involuntary displacement of people from their habitat, livelihood and social environment as a direct consequence of forced acquisition of their land and settlements for execution of various projects. Reliable official estimates of the magnitude of such displacement have been lacking due to disinterest in the state for collecting such information, its analysis and dissemination and placing it in public domain. But one non-official estimate placed the figure at nearly 60 million people till 2000 (Fernandes, 2006). The displacement since the onset of economic reforms for mega mining, industrial and infrastructure projects, special economic zones (SEZs), industrial corridors, etc. has far exceeded the earlier pace and spread of land acquisition and the extent of displacement before 2000. Tribals have borne the brunt of this onslaught with more than 40 per cent share in this displacement but only 8 per cent of the population. With no option to prevent such acquisition due to its forced nature and no obligation of the state to rehabilitate the displaced persons with provision of alternative land or livelihood, the state acquisition of land for ‘development’ turns the dignified self-employed farmers and agricultural labourers into destitute landless labourers overnight. Besides traumatic human consequences, this mode of ‘development’ swallows huge areas of productive (including irrigated and multi-cropped) agricultural land which has most adverse implications for food security of the people. This insecurity can only be appreciated by those who have lived through the nightmare of PL 480 days of dependence on outside supplies for feeding the people.
The persons affected by this forcible displacement causing acquisition of land by the state have been resisting it since independence. This resistance increased manifold with the increase in quantum of land acquisition, its spread and pace consequent upon a shift to a market economy and turned into a massive movement in the last two decades. This stalled/delayed the process of acquisition of land in several places and prompted the state to use force to take possession of land resulting in loss of life and injury to the resisting farmers. Civil society activists, academics and non-government organisations engaged in raising issues of social concern have long been demanding scrapping of the colonial law—Land Acquisition Act, 1894, which forms the basis for such acquisition and its replacement with a democratic and humane law which protects the interests of the affected persons. They provided to the government detailed analysis of various provisions of the law which are extremely detrimental to the interests of farmers and other persons dependent on land for survival and strongly advocated the need to change it by enacting a new law incorporating their concerns. The more important among changes recommended for insertion in the new law included acquisition of land with the informed consent of the persons likely to be affected, restricting the ambit of ‘public purpose’ to only those activities undertaken by the government which directly benefit the people, particularly the displacees, ban on acquisition of land for private companies, mandatory environmental and social impact assessment (SIA) before taking a decision to acquire land, prohibition on acquisition of irrigated and multi-cropped land, obligation to provide adequate compensation, rehabilitation and resettlement to all persons including livelihood losers affected by acquisition of land whether by state or private entities, return of unutilised land acquired in excess of the requirement of the project to erstwhile owners and severely restricting the urgency provision for acquisition of land to extremely unavoidable situations such as natural calamities, war, etc.
Concerned with this resistance of affected persons, which was delaying the execution of several high-profile projects, the government was forced to undertake large-scale revision of the Land Acquisition Act (1894) enacted during the colonial period. This exercise was spread over six years starting with the first draft in 2007 followed by a second draft in 2009 to the final enactment in 2013, during which period several rounds of consultation with stakeholders took place including two all-party meetings. The Parliamentary Standing Committee had occasion to deliberate on it twice. The final version that emerged after a 12-hour debate in both Houses of Parliament in which 60 members took part was a much diluted version of the comprehensive draft for consultation placed in public domain in 2011. The law that was finally enacted through this strenuous process had at least the consensus of all political parties including the now-ruling NDA’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) then in opposition (Ramesh & Khan, 2015). In fact, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Minster piloting the bill made last-minute changes at the behest of leader of opposition (BJP) to have them on board for which he was even complimented by her.
The new Act had not even begun getting implemented when the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government now in power took a sharp ‘U’ turn and even decided to take the ordinance route to amend its most crucial provisions to placate corporations. This was intended to convey a clear signal to the investors that all obstacles would be removed to make the land available to them in the shortest possible time and with reduced transaction cost. The changes effected in the 2013 law—Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act (Ministry of Law and Justice, Government of India, 2013)—through ordinance are thus taking the clock back to pre-2007 period and restoring the durability of the colonial 1894 Law.
The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) ordinance (Ministry of Law and Justice, Government of India, 2014), notified on 31 December, 2014, has made the following changes:
The ‘Private Company’ wherever occurring in the 2013 Act shall be substituted by ‘Private entity’ implying that not only land can be acquired for companies and corporations registered under the Companies Act, 2013, but also any entity under any law other than a government entity or undertaking. This change extends the facility of acquisition of land by the state even to registered societies, co-operatives, trusts, proprietorships, partnerships, non-profit organisations etc. and enormously expands the ambit of acquisition, and therefore increasing the displacement of people manifold. The Principal Law (2013) had excluded private hospitals and private educational institutions from the ambit of infrastructure projects for which land could be acquired without the consent of the affected persons. The ordinance omits these exclusions implying that these two purposes would also qualify for being considered ‘infrastructure’ for which compulsory acquisition can be undertaken by the state, and therefore the obligation for obtaining prior consent of the affected persons for such acquisition would not be necessary. Private hospitals and private educational institutions which are pronouncedly profit-making activities, cater to the affluent sections of society and charge high fees from users. The implication of this amendment is that the state would still treat their activities as ‘Public Purpose’, accord them the same priority as other public infrastructure projects for acquisition of land and would do away with the need for consulting persons likely to be affected and obtaining consent as per the provisions of the law before acquiring land for them. It is evident that even the small differentiation between public and private purpose signified by this exclusion in the Principal Act has been removed. The amendment knocks off even the few areas where consultation with people likely to be affected was considered necessary prior to acquisition and therefore reverts to the unlimited power of acquisition which the state enjoyed prior to the 2013 Law. A new chapter III A has been added to the 2013 Act which empowers appropriate government to exempt following five categories of projects from the obligation of obtaining consent of the families affected by acquisition of land and application of chapter II and chapter III of the Act:
Projects vital to national security or defence of India and every part thereof Rural infrastructure including electrification Affordable housing and housing for the poor people Industrial corridors Infrastructure and social infrastructure projects including those of public—private partnerships As for the consent clause, the unamended law had already included several categories of projects where government acquired land for its own use, hold and control including infrastructure projects for different purposes under the definition of ‘Public Purpose’ for which the obligation to obtain prior consent would not apply and had restricted this obligation only to acquisition of land for private companies and private–private partnerships. The ordinance expands the list of exemptions from application of consent clause to the above five categories. This amendment has the effect of virtually nullifying the entire provision which obligates obtaining of prior consent of affected families before acquisition. This fivefold separate categorisation of purposes is bereft of any logic and rationale as some of the projects under them would overlap with categories already included in the list exempted from consent obligation. Its only intention appears to be to remove ‘consent’ from acquisition of land altogether. This is because the conceptualisation of five categories of projects is loose and vague, lacks precision and clarity and makes them expandable which would be used by politicians, bureaucrats, builders or investors to include just any project under one or the other category (Yadav, 2015). The amendment goes further than even the colonial law which had at least limited it to the purposes listed and were not as expandable as the amended provision would make them now. This would promote/facilitate arbitrariness in administrative decision-making. Besides, the exemptions in the unamended law had been carved out as a result of sustained public consultation (Ramesh & Khan, 2015) and were in themselves quite liberal. The amendment is, therefore, intended to knock off the ‘consent’ clause altogether from acquisition of any project for private companies and PPs and thereby puts them on par with acquisition by government for its own activities. This provides a clear signal that government would retain absolute and unquestioned power of acquisition, and affected families would have no say in the matter. The amendment, to say the least, is retrograde. The long struggle by people affected by such acquisitions along with their backers in civil society to make land acquisition more humane and democratic revolved around some basic principles, one of which was that the state using the notion of eminent domain cannot have absolute right to take over private land without the consent of the owner even if such acquisition is for public purpose. It is morally even more indefensible when such acquisition is for private companies the sole objective of which is to earn profit. Hence, the demand for undertaking the acquisition of land is conditional on the informed consent of the persons likely to be affected. The 2013 Law only made a partial concession to this demand by inserting the condition of prior consent only in the cases of acquisition for public–private partnership projects and private companies. It left a huge area of acquisition for strategic purposes, infrastructure projects, planned development and residence of the poor outside the purview of this conditionality. Also, the infrastructure projects were so elaborately enumerated as to bring virtually any development project within its fold. Now, the ordinance removes even this small area of conditional acquisition from five categories of projects—national security and defence, rural infrastructure, affordable housing, industrial corridors, infrastructure and social infrastructure projects including public–private partnerships. These categories along with already listed categories exempted from consent conditionality virtually leave no activity now which would require consent. Thus, the years of efforts by those dependent on land for survival to be a stakeholder in the decision to acquire their land which culminated in the limited accommodation in the 2013 Act has been nullified, and we are back to 1894 Law where the state would have absolute power to acquire land and the landowners/users/livelihood losers would have no say in it. Besides expanding the ambit of consent-free acquisition of land, the ordinance also exempts these five categories of projects from application of chapters II and III. This has several implications: Chapter II deals with determination of SIA and public purpose. The insertion of SIA in chapter II in the 2013 Law was intended to achieve certain objectives. The first of such objectives was to ensure that the entire picture of adverse impact of the proposed project could be investigated and documented so that it could be weighed against the benefits that were claimed to accrue to the people in the project report so that the overall utility of the project to the people could be realistically and objectively assessed while taking a decision on acquisition of land. If the adverse effects exceed the projected benefits and the cost–benefit ratio emerging from this exercise is negative, the project could be abandoned or modified so as to eliminate the adverse aspects or corrective measures inserted to neutralise them. The existing practice is to exaggerate benefits, conceal or underestimate the adverse impacts, so as to show a positive cost–benefit ratio and qualify for approval of the project and seek credit from the financial institutions. The change carried out now would remove such an assessment if the government issues a notification to exempt application of chapter II. As a result, project authority’s claim would prevail concealing the social reality. This practice which was prevalent before the enactment of 2013 Law had resulted in huge problems in execution of the projects because the ground reality differed from what was painted in the project report. This practice would continue, and the progress made in reforming it has been thwarted. The second objective of carrying out an SIA was to examine whether the activities to be undertaken by the project would qualify for being called ‘Public Purpose’. The earlier practice was that any activity which the government declared to be a ‘Public Purpose’ was accepted as such and the affected people had no right to question it. The courts also did not look into the matter and accepted the contention of the government without scrutiny. This enabled the government to exercise arbitrary powers to declare a ‘Public Purpose’. With absolute power of acquisition enjoyed by the state under the colonial law, no acquisition proposal could be subjected to scrutiny by any external body not even courts which enjoy the power of judicial review conferred by the Constitution. The Principal Act (2013) changed this arbitrary exercise of power and democratised it by providing for scrutiny by the people as well the courts. As a result, the action of the government to acquire land would continue to remain as unaccountable as it was prior to the enactment of 2013 Law. People who lose their productive assets, livelihoods and habitat as a result of acquisition of their land would have no opportunity to question its rationale nor would courts be enabled to intervene if people likely to be affected approach them. This is a recipe for indiscriminate acquisition, more so with such a large number of projects qualifying for this label in the vague and loose fivefold categories as listed in the newly inserted chapter IIIA in the ordinance. The years of struggles by the affected persons and advocacy by the civil society to introduce some democratic accountability in the matter have gone in vain. The third objective of this exercise was to examine whether the extent of land to be acquired is necessary and, if so, is the barest minimum needed for the project and whether it can be met from the unutilised land already available with the government either from its own pool of owned land or from the unutilised land acquired for other projects so as to avoid acquisition of land and consequent displacement of people. This exercise would also deliberate on whether alternative land other than the one proposed for acquisition would not serve the purpose which may reduce the quantum of acquisition and consequent displacement and entail less disruption of people’s lives and livelihood. This scrutiny/deliberation was considered necessary because, in the past, excessively large areas of land were acquired which remained unutilised or diverted for activities other than for the project or any other public purpose. Even this exercise would not take place now, and the requirement of land and location of the project proposed by the requiring agency would go through as has happened in the past. The fourth and the most important objective of this chapter was to introduce a paradigm shift in the process of land acquisition from an exclusively bureaucratically handled process to a participatory one where the people likely to be affected could be involved in different stages of land acquisition, rehabilitation and resettlement. This was intended to minimise conflict between government/project authority and the affected persons and smoothen the process of acquisition. Even though this participation was adequately checkmated in the Principal Act (2013) by provision of committees with large presence of officials so as to retain the ultimate power to overrule any conclusion/recommendation from these deliberations not considered acceptable and ensure that the government has a final say in the matter, there was at least some space available for the affected persons to articulate their views, influence the process of decision-making and negotiate some accommodation in the proposal for acquisition when finalised. Even this little window of democratic concession has been eliminated. The fifth objective was to identify the extent of displacement it would cause of those dependent on agricultural land which is proposed to be acquired. It was particularly intended to identify the livelihood losers who are usually ignored in any scheme of rehabilitation and resettlement. This is because such schemes are based on rights holders inserted in the land records which do not even record the names of tenants far less other livelihood losers such as agricultural labourers. The 2013 Act provides for rehabilitation and resettlement of such livelihood losers also. By making chapter II inapplicable to the listed categories of projects, it would be difficult to rehabilitate and resettle livelihood losers (Ramesh, 2015) since SIA was intended to assess the incidence of livelihood loss among other things. Thus, the most vulnerable group among the displacees would get left out. This right to compensation, rehabilitation and resettlement for livelihood losers was inserted for the first time and after a sustained advocacy by civil society. But the zeal for placating the investors has ignored the suffering the amendments may cause to this large vulnerable group. Given the pronounced tilt in the approach of the bureaucracy and the political executives towards the corporations/investors in the current economy and their excessive zeal to attract private and particular foreign direct investment by removing just any hindrance perceived by them to be against their interests and calculations of profitability, a notification to exempt application of chapter II would be issued by appropriate governments enthusiastically. The bureaucracy and the industry thus have the last laugh and have adequately demonstrated their clout in the making of public policy against the collective pressure of the people and their backers in civil society. Chapter III in the 2013 Law deals with measures to safeguard food security. It puts checks on the acquisition of irrigated multi-cropped land by banning it except in special circumstances and also introduces a caveat that if such exceptional circumstances are made out to justify its acquisition, the total acquisition of such land would not exceed the limit specified for a district or state by the state government. Further, where such acquisition is resorted after complying with these conditionalities, the law obligated the government to develop equivalent area of cultural wasteland to compensate for this loss. Where even this is not possible, an amount equivalent to the value of acquired land would be invested in irrigation. Even in respect of agricultural land, which is not irrigated multi-cropped, it had restricted its acquisition to such limits of total net-sown area of the district or state as notified by the State government. These measures were inserted so as to protect agricultural land in general and irrigated and multi-cropped land in particular from diversion for non-agricultural purposes. The shrinking area of agricultural land has been a cause for concern as it affects food security. But the exemption from application of chapter III granted by the ordinance has a negative impact on this too. The Principal Act itself had diluted the ban on acquisition of irrigated multi-cropped land and agricultural land by leaving an escape route of permitting such acquisition to a limit to be notified by state governments for each district/state. It enlarged the ambit of dilution by leaving it to the state governments to fix the limits of such acquisition for each district or state. It further compromised on the conditionality of developing an equivalent area of cultural wasteland as a compensating mechanism for such acquisition by providing the alternative of monetising this obligation in case this was not possible. Besides, it had made these restrictions on acquisition of irrigated multi-cropped land and agricultural land inapplicable to projects that are linear in nature such as those of railways, highways, district roads, irrigation canals, power lines etc. But the ordinance by empowering state governments to exempt the application of the entire chapter III has altogether removed even this fig leaf of a check. This makes it obvious that private sector growth fundamentalism prevails over even concerns of food security. Tragically, a larger number of state governments, which include even agriculturally advanced states like Punjab and Haryana which are a source of most food grains procured for public distribution system (PDS), are eager to ignore considerations of food security for attracting private investment for industrial and infrastructure projects. No one in the government—centre or state—has even bothered to think how it would affect the obligation of the state to enforce the right to food security under the National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013, with this indifference to protection of valuable agricultural land. Perhaps, the current government may even be thinking of scrapping the right to food or reducing the ambit of its eligibility even though NFSA was the culmination of a long struggle of people, sustained campaign of civil society and numerous interventions by the Supreme Court. People’s concerns, it seems, have little value in governance when pitched against concerns of the private investors in the current political dispensation. As per the Section 24 (2) of the Principal Act (2013), cases initiated under 1894 Act where an award has been announced in respect of land acquisition cases five years or more prior to the commencement of the Act (2013) but physical possession of land has not been taken or the compensation has not been paid, the proceedings would deem to have lapsed and would require to be started afresh if the government so chooses. A proviso to this section says that where award has been made and compensation in respect of a majority of landholdings has not been deposited in the account of the beneficiaries, all the beneficiaries involved in the proceeding would be entitled to compensation admissible under 2013 Law. The clarification provided by insertion of these two provisions were appreciated by the Supreme Court (Ramesh, 2015). The amendment now carried out provides that while computing the period of five years in this subsection period of stay or injunction issued by any court or the period specified for taking possession in the award of a Tribunal or the period where possession has been taken but compensation lying deposited in a court or an account maintained for this purpose, would not be counted. This implies that the commencement of the five-year period would not include any period external to the performance of the government/acquiring agency due to which possession could not be taken or compensation could not be deposited since in such cases the acquiring agency could not be held responsible for delay caused on this account. The first objective of this amendment is intended to save the acquisition proceedings from getting lapsed ostensibly on the ground that the circumstances leading to enlargement of the five-year period were not under the control of the acquiring agency. This provision is detrimental to the interests of the affected land and livelihood losers. The affected land losers approach a court when they feel that their compensation has not been fairly assessed or there are some other violations of the law. The stay order or injunction by such a court indicates that it considered the issue/issues raised by the land losers worthy of consideration and adjudication. The 2013 Act had in such cases, by allowing the proceeding to lapse, sought to protect the land losers from suffering caused by long period of locking of their land and uncertainty resulting from absence of closure of proceedings as during this period they can neither make use of land nor look for other avenues of livelihood. This provision gives them a break by removing the uncertainty and frees their land for cultivation. In case the lapsed proceedings are restarted, the land losers and livelihood losers would be enabled to claim the benefit of more liberal compensation and rehabilitation and resettlement provided in the 2013 Act. The amendment now carried out deprives them of this benefit since the stay order or injunction would get vacated only when court proceedings are finally disposed of. During the period of disposal of proceedings, the land losers would not be able to make use of their land which makes their survival precarious. Further, they would not be able to claim the benefit of enhanced compensation along with rehabilitation and settlement under the new law when the court finally decides their case. Thus, the amendment carried out tilts in favour of the project/acquiring agency by protecting their interest and against those of the affected persons. The amendment also excludes from the period of five years the period specified in the award of a Tribunal for taking possession of land. It implies that if the award of a Tribunal, for example, has specified a period of two years for possession to be taken, in computing the period of five years, the period specified for taking possession (two years in this example) would be excluded. In other words, the proceedings would lapse only if possession has not been taken of the land and compensation has not been paid seven years or more prior to the commencement of 2013 Act. Not only this, if possession has been taken within this enhanced seven-year period, the affected persons would still be governed by the terms of the old law for no fault of theirs despite the fact that a new and more liberal law has come into effect. This is unfair to the land losers. On grounds of equity, the government should have been more protective towards the interests of the affected persons by at least giving them the liberal terms of compensation and rehabilitation and resettlement, if the possession of land has not taken place due to delay in disposal of the case by the Tribunal even if they were keen on saving the old proceedings from lapsing. The second part of this amendment involves retrospective payment of enhanced compensation under the 2013 Act to all the beneficiaries involved in the concerned land acquisition proceedings if the compensation has not been deposited in the account of the beneficiaries. Here too, the period of five years would be computed after excluding the period during which proceedings were held up on account of stay or injunction issued by a court or specified in the award of a Tribunal for taking possession of land or where possession has been taken but compensation is lying deposited in a court or account maintained for this purpose. The intention clearly is to deprive the land losers involved of the benefit of enhanced compensation. Here too, the tilt towards project authority is evident in protecting them from the liability of payment of enhanced compensation and consequent increase in the cost of land acquisition, while doing injustice to the land losers. Section 46 of the Principal Act (2013) deals with provisions relating to rehabilitation and resettlement of persons affected by purchase of land through private negotiation. It obligates the purchaser to apply to the collector with necessary information about his transaction so that the obligation to provide rehabilitation and resettlement is cast on him as a condition for obtaining permission to change in land use. The amendment removes the words ‘any person other than’ from the explanation to Subsection 6 (b). The original provision as it read had excluded appropriate government, government company or any registered society or trust wholly or partly aided or controlled by the government from the purview of this obligation by excluding them from the definition of ‘specified persons’. The amendment removes this exclusionary provision. This implies that these three categories of specified persons would also be obligated to comply with this conditionality and cannot be given the permission for change in land use if rehabilitation and resettlement as per award of the collector is not complied with in full. It is not clear if the exclusion of the listed government entities from complying with the obligation in Section 46 of the 2013 Act was intended or was a drafting error because it does not stand to reason that a government company or aided or controlled trust or society would have been absolved of the obligation to provide rehabilitation and settlement to the affected person as per the provision of the Act and therefore to deposit its cost. When the law is even insisting on private purchasers of land to comply with the obligation, the government in any case is obligated to provide this package where it acquires land for activities undertaken by agencies—companies, societies and trusts aided and controlled by it. However, if the intention really was to exclude these agencies from the obligation to provide rehabilitation and resettlement as per the scheme approved by the commissioner and therefore to deposit its cost in advance, the exclusion was indefensible and has been rightly deleted. In any case, this amendment provides clarity to the provision and makes the three government entities liable for complying with the award of the collector on rehabilitation and resettlement of persons affected by purchase of land through private negotiation as a condition for seeking permission to change land use along with those affected by land acquisition by private entities. They would also have to follow the procedure laid down for this purpose in Section 46. The amendment prima facie does not appear to have any adverse implications. The ordinance also amends Section 101 of the Principal Act which lays down that if the acquired land remains unutilised for a period of five years, the same shall be returned to the owners or legal heirs or the land bank. The amendment substitutes the period of five years with a period specified for setting up of any project or five years whichever is later. This is an attempt to retain the unutilised land for a longer period with the project agency and deprive the land losers of the benefit of return of land because the acquiring authority can ‘specify an extremely lengthy and generous period for completion of any project without any accountability’ (Ramesh, 2015). The provision to return unutilised land was inserted to check the tendency of project authorities to acquire large areas of land much in excess of requirement. The unutilised land is encroached/diverted for other uses. The amendment would fail to check this tendency and relieve the misery of the affected people. The intention is to scuttle this obligation to return land which was an important concession granted in the 2013 Act. It would thus be evident that every beneficial provision in the 2013 Act other than the one relating to compensation, rehabilitation and resettlement has been made either inapplicable or diluted. The 2013 Act provides for prosecution of government officials guilty of offence under it. The amendment requires that launching of such a prosecution against a government servant shall require prior sanction of government before any cognisance is taken by a court. This is intended to insulate such public functionaries engaged in implementation of the law from legal action for offences specified in the Act and thus dilutes their accountability. This amendment is retrograde in nature when the Supreme Court is increasingly critical of government tendency to either deny or delay such sanction or to keep the proposal pending for a decision for a long period. The amendment would fail to check delay, inaction, wrong action and remove the element of fear of possible legal action from them. The attempt to reform the negligence of bureaucracy by introducing modicum of accountability has been nipped in the bud. The 2013 Act had provided that within a period of one year, that is December 2014, certain beneficial provisions of the 2013 Act (such as compensation, rehabilitation and resettlement) could be applied if necessary with some modification to 13 other acquisition laws listed in the fourth schedule. The ordinance has complied with this provision. This is no concession but mere compliance of the existing law which in any case was necessary (Ramesh and Khan, 2015). However, as mentioned, in the absence of SIA, compliance of this provision would be incomplete as it would be difficult to identify livelihood losers and affected persons other than land losers. It would also be inadequate as the range and depth of adverse impact of the project would not be available to prepare a meaningful rehabilitation and resettlement scheme. The 2013 Act empowers the central government to give directions or remove difficulties in the law but wrongly used the word ‘part’ for the law. This has been corrected. But in the Principal Act, this power could be exercised only within two years of the commencement of the Act. However, the ordinance has extended this period to five years. The intention is negative and underlines the danger that in the garb of issuing directions/removal difficulties, whatever remains of the beneficial provisions may be diluted. This amendment, therefore, creates a great deal of apprehension about the intention of the government given its tilt towards industry and investors. From the above, it is clear that the main objective of this ordinance is to smoothen the process of acquisition of land for private sector entities by removing any provision that could possibly delay the acquisition or increase the transaction and opportunity cost for them (Chakravorty, 2015). Government wishes to make the land available to them in the least possible time and with no hiccups and also at least cost to them. It is evident that no other consideration is important to them. Millions of farmers, and those who depend upon agriculture for survival constitute overwhelming majority of the population, do not seem to have any clout in the present government; otherwise, such drastic changes would not have been introduced in the law. Government’s argument that the provision of compensation and rehabilitation has not been touched is irrelevant. The poor dependent upon land for survival were/are not looking for higher compensation to part with their land but respite from acquisition so as to save the asset and their only source of livelihood. Compensation amount would not enable them to purchase alternative land even if it is available. With no alternative employment on offer in the 2013 Law (it absolves this responsibility of project authority by replacing it with payment of money as a substitute), the people likely to be affected face a bleak future of uncertainty and destitution. For tribals, in any case, land is priceless as it is the abode of their gods, a marker of their identity and is so intimately associated with their entire existence and value system. Its value for them cannot be measured in financial terms. This exercise of amendment in the Principal Act (2013), therefore, only responds to the pressure of corporations, bureaucrats, politicians and neoliberal economists who considered the 2013 Act unworkable and a serious bottleneck to economic growth (Chakravorty, 2015). This view, however, has no basis as there is no evidence to support these apprehensions since the implementation of 2013 Act has not even begun. What these amendments do demonstrate in no uncertain terms is the power which capital commands in the polity even when there is a democratic government in the saddle and how powerless the affected people are against it. Their political right to vote is such a weak weapon to fight the lethal power of money. They feel cheated by being deprived of even the small concessions they had gained after years of struggle in which they suffered loss of life, injury and destruction of property and faced numerous criminal cases field against them. ‘Public reason has been bent and twisted in this unequal contest of Power’ (Yadav, 2015). This ‘obscene’ unequal power, however, would not go without a challenge. The country may be in for more social conflicts as the affected people are unlikely to accept these changes without resistance.