No control over the natural resources - Land

In the same way we do not have control over the natural resources of the country like mines, forests, water or land   which are being plundered and sold to business houses for personal gains of the elected representative. 

There is unrest in the country over the issue of acquisition of land. In every state of our country and  at least at three to four places, there is mass protest against the forced acquisition of land. The land  is being acquired against the wishes of the land owners. There are some fundamental issues which are highlighted as under in connection with land acquisition. 

1. Many farmers are just not interested in selling land because they cannot comprehend how the acquisition of their property for the proposed schemes of the government is going to benefit the common man or them and the government has totally failed to explain this to the people. In most places the acquired land is being given to big business houses, where the legislator has already struck a financial deal. This explains to a great extent why the elected representative is willing to snatch land away from the very people who voted him to power. 
2. Many farmers want better price for their land. It is believed that the price at which the land is acquired is less and that is becoming the point of agitation at many places. The rate of land for acquisition are decided  by the government and the people are not involved at all at any stage in deciding what they want or what they do not want. When the land is acquired the realization of the price of land takes many years. 
3. In many tribal areas land is acquired and a compensation of rupee one or two lac is given. This money is not sufficient to run their entire life. They belonged to that land through which they were making a living.  Once they are uprooted from their natural habitat, it is not only a social upheaval for them but also an invitation to hunger  and poverty. The government fails to understand and measure the gravity of the problem that the tribal face. 
4. Many a times when the land is acquired in a village, it is only the owner that gets the compensation. The others who depended on that land  for their livelihood, the laborer for instance face starvation. The whole economic infrastructure that revolved around that land collapses; for instance shops and small businesses that thrived on agriculture face extinction.
5. By acquisition of land for various industrial and other  enterprises   the business houses get a lot of profit, the politicians and government officers make money through bribes and the farmers face unemployment, the landless face hunger and deprivation and the food security of the nation gets weakened. Can the Politicians and the Government explain how this type of land acquisition is in national interest?

We need to understand the present system of land acquisition. If a company wants to set up a factory near or in the village then the company approaches the state government for permission instead of approaching the village. Bureaucrats and Politicians sitting in air conditioned offices in state capitals grant the company permission after taking hefty bribes. After the permission is granted for setting up the factory, the government  machinery is brought into motion like providing meager compensation, using police force to impose the acquisition and eject the land owners from their land. The land is, in fact, literally snatched from the people’s hand without their consent. All because vested interest at the centre or the state level are corrupt, inaccessible and unanswerable to the very people who had sent them to protect their interest with the government. 
In the name of Special Economic Zone (SEZ) land of  countless people is snatched away from them.  And the central government passes twenty to thirty such proposals in an hour If we are aware of the magnitude of one SEZ we can perhaps understand what goes on in these airconditioned office meetings where the country’s planners just take a few seconds to sanction one plan. Whatever goes on in such meetings we don’t know but there is certainly no time for due deliberation or discussion over the merits or the demerits of the project under review. But it is evidently here that deals are struck and money changes hands.  The companies who have paid the bribes are able to get their proposals sanctioned and the companies that have not go back empty handed  The process of sanction of SEZ is a  mere charade.