Modernization projects and eviction
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: July 10, 2014 -

The report is poignant and disturbing at the same time. The possibility of wiping out an entire ancestral land now looms large over Yurembam, a beautiful place in Imphal West district.

Again, it is modernization that is poised to wreck havoc at the village which is there since 663 AD, according to the Joint Action Committee constituted to resist construction of railway station at Yurembam.

What is even more touching is the fact that Yurembam is already a victim of land acquisition for Government sponsored projects not once or twice, but three times.

For the fourth time, Yurembam is again staring at another possible juggernaut of land acquisition and painful eviction in order to make space for railway track and railway station.

A substantial part of Yurembam was taken over by the State for construction of a power sub-station around 40 years back.

Yurembam parted with another part of its self when the Government set up a power station of North Eastern Electric Power Corporation Limited about 20 years back.

The third land acquisition took place in 2010 when the 400 KV power plant of the Power Grid Corporation of India was expanded.

The inhabitants, this time, are appalled that the whole of Yurembam would be annihilated. The issue of land acquisition and concomitant eviction is always a tricky issue for any State.

More often than not, land acquisition entails tense stand-off between the State and the affected people.

There were instances when the State resorted to its law enforcing machinery to evict people. In another word, the State unleashed violence upon its own citizens.

Eviction of unlawful encroachers is another thing but what unfailingly stirs public conscience is the eviction of lawful land owners.

The pertinent question is, does any State enjoys moral authority to unleash violence upon its law abiding citizens.

Of course, the State has its own legal systems and it would have followed a set of procedures before someone is evicted from his/her ancestral land.

The debate here is not about the State’s legal systems or its land acquisition mechanism. It is more about the grievance remedial systems, and also the pain and loss suffered by the evicted people.

Yes, there is the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act 2013.

What one should introspect here is how fair are the provisions of this Act and whether it is comprehensive enough to redress all the plight and misery generally associated with eviction.

Theoretically the Act provides for a humane, participative, informed and transparent process for land acquisition for industrialization, development of essential infrastructural facilities and urbanization with the least disturbance to the owners of the land and other affected families; just and fair compensation to the affected families whose land has been acquired or affected and rehabilitation and resettlement.

Coming back to the question of Yurembam, one would surely like to ask whether the State has no other option than land acquisition or eviction.

Is there no room to alter the railway track’s alignment? Is there no alternative to spare Yurembam?

The Government should explore all alternatives before going ahead with the land acquisition process and wipe out the entire village.

It’s not only the human settlement areas, even the surrounding fertile paddy fields are highly precious just as the Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen once commented, “prohibiting the use of fertile agricultural land for industries is ultimately self-defeating”.

The State Government’s New Land Use Policy should take into account all such infringements into agricultural land by modernization projects.

We don’t think Amartya Sen made his comment without any reason or purpose.