The second ace in the deck for
the ruling party is the Land Acquisition Bill which is due for discussion in
the Lok Sabha today, with the Govt. managing a “broad consensus” five months
ago with the opposition.
After the much anticipated Food
bill, the pro-poor & mass vote appeal Land bill is highly anticipated game
changer for the current populist regime. The idea is to keep the masses happy
with “too little too late” public vote garnering Bills which in the end do not
meet the intended purpose except to keep the ruling party in power for another
5 years.
Long term planning is out the
window as long as short term gains are big enough (think 10,000 crores in
scams) to offset the long term discord that the society is being pushed to the
brink of. The only light in the tunnel seems
to be this ray of hope that the Land bill will provide to all those people
whose sole earnings and livelihoods are dependent on this asset.
It intends to protect & safeguard
the rights of the land owners, and the as per the provision, 80 % of the displaced
people are required to give their consent in case of private acquisitions and
70% in case of Govt. & Public-Private projects.
This Bill is like a candy in a
shiny package and sweet coating but with a bitter inner core. And, unless the
execution & implementation is done by keeping its true intentions intact it
will fail to achieve the mass appeal it has garnered till now. Similar to the
infrastructural reforms and several alluring FDI schemes these bills too have
made a loud noise but have had virtually no impact in the lives of the common
people.
What the Govt. lacks in long
term goal planning it has made up through taking up long standing issues at the
end of its term, like they do so in the movies where the hero is yet to make a
comeback but in a sequel. I just hope that the sequel is better than the
original.
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