Former chief minister Capt. Amarinder Singh charged the Akali-BJP government of “deliberately subverting long-established legal processes to forcibly acquire farmers’ lands across Punjab.”
Citing a recent Cabinet decision under which the government proposes to designate private persons as “land aggregators” to purchase land from farmers and sell it to the government at a commission (profit) of two per cent of the actual cost, Capt. Singh said, “Many Akali leaders are proclaimed land grabbers who have until now been working illegally. They now want to legalise land grabbing.”
Insisting the decision would lead to unprecedented exploitation of land owners, the former chief minister questioned the real motives of the state government in hastily announcing a new policy when the government of India was already close to legislating a Model Land Acquisition Policy for all states.
He added that the Parkash Singh Badal government rushed through with the new land policy without proper legislation and despite serious objections from both, the state’s finance and revenue departments.
“This is nothing but a throwback to the times even before the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 was enacted by the then colonial government,” Capt. Singh said. “Small landowners would be at the mercy of the so-called land aggregators who could coerce them into selling their ancestral holdings cheaply.”
Describing the entire exercise as a “huge conspiracy”, the former CM said, “The government is actually colluding with land-grabbers to strike cheap benami deals after which the government and its aggregators will step in to acquire the same lands for huge profit using public funds.”
He said the same “criminal” tactics had been used earlier during land acquisitions for the international airport and aerocity in Mohali district, where senior Akali leaders purchased large tracts of land cheaply and later resold the same to the government to earn huge profits.