West Bengal weighs on land pooling, impetus to industrial parks to attract investments

New Delhi/Kolkata: The BJP Government in West Bengal is exploring land pooling and the development of more industrial parks to facilitate the availability of large tracts of land for industry without direct acquisition, a politically sensitive issue in the state following the Singur and Nandigram agitations.

Subrata Gupta, adviser to Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, told PTI that land pooling is among the options being examined by the state to facilitate land aggregation, alongside a greater emphasis on developing industrial parks.

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"Land pooling is one of the options that the state is evaluating for land aggregation, apart from giving greater impetus to industrial parks. The objective is to facilitate the availability of larger parcels of land required by industry while addressing the challenges posed by fragmented land holdings," he said.

These models could help the state facilitate the assembly of large land parcels while limiting its direct involvement in transactions with individual landowners.

The political sensitivity surrounding land makes such models particularly important for the BJP government, as any move towards direct acquisition for private industry could provide the opposition with a potent campaign issue in a state where land conflicts have had far-reaching political consequences.

Gupta said if the government decides to adopt land pooling, it will have to bring in the necessary legislation to implement the policy.

Land pooling involves bringing together fragmented private land parcels for planned development rather than acquiring them outright. Landowners are typically offered developed plots or other benefits in return for contributing their land to the scheme.

One of the largest examples of land pooling is in Andhra Pradesh, where around 33,000 acres were pooled from about 29,000 farmers for the development of Amaravati.

Land pooling, along with similar land readjustment and town-planning schemes, has also been implemented in states such as Gujarat, Maharashtra, Punjab and Kerala.

The model can create large contiguous parcels and reduce upfront acquisition costs, but its success depends on clear land titles and records, transparent rules on the distribution of benefits and timelines, stakeholder participation and an effective grievance-redress mechanism.

A policy brief by the Indian Institute for Human Settlements describes land pooling as an alternative to conventional land acquisition in which parcels owned by different individuals are aggregated and redeveloped, with landowners receiving a share of the developed land or other benefits according to predetermined criteria.

The model can also reduce discontent by allowing landowners to share in the increased value of developed land while enabling multiple stakeholders to participate in land assembly and development.

For West Bengal, land pooling could address the problem of fragmented land holdings without requiring the government to acquire individual parcels.

Under the industrial park model, private developers can aggregate land and develop parks with ready-to-use plots and common infrastructure for industrial units. This could also help address restrictions on land holdings that individual companies may face when they require large contiguous parcels.

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Gupta, a former IAS officer, said the state is also examining changes to land laws governing land holding and utilisation.

He said repeal of the Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulation) Act would not be a "silver bullet" for industry as industrial units generally do not fall under the ambit of the urban land ceiling.

"Industries do not fall under the urban land ceiling. What we need is reform of land laws which are stringent on holding and utilisation," he said.

"If a large unit comes in, it will require a larger quantum of land, and we will have to provide laws so that the company can hold on to that land and use it for its purposes," he added.

The state is simultaneously looking at land belonging to closed industrial units as another source for meeting industry's land requirements, without having to open up fresh acquisition of agricultural land.

Gupta said the government is also working on reforms relating to bargadars, or sharecroppers, who are no longer engaged in farming but continue to enjoy legal rights over land.

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