Rajiv Shah ITNN Gandhlnagar: Despite claims that land acquisition for development is a smooth affair in Gujarat, a top-level policy document has described it as a major problem for developing infrastructure projects across the state and that opposition to the process has increased considerably. Prepared by Gujarat Infrastructure Development Board (GEDB), the nodal agency for promoting infrastructure projects, under the chief minister's office (CMO), the document warns that land acquisitions are becoming "a source of tension and delays, potentially derailing projects, significantly impacting growth and development." Estimating that infrastructure projects currently under implementation require acquiring a whopping 64,000 hectares (ha) of land, the report -Review of Blueprint for Infrastructure in Gujarat - admits that in recent times "opposition to land acquisition has increased dramatically". Pointing towards the danger ahead, it says, "While earlier the delay in acquisition resulted from lengthy litigation, now opposition acquires a highly political character, stalling acquisition processes completely." The document explains, "If earlier the opposition resulted in delay in the acquisition of individual land parcels, creating special discontinuities, now entire groups of affected land owners come together in a highly organised resistance." Blaming the resistance on the official practice of "undervaluing land during normal sales transactions," it says, this happens because officials rely on transaction records to establish current value instead of the current market value. Claiming that this might be taken care of with the adoption of new jantri rates, being fixed for each kilometre across Gujarat and to be revised very six months, the document regrets large-scale land acquisition does not take into consideration that the affected population consists of farmers, who have strong bond with land and are dependent it for livelihood. ISSUES Extending land pooling mechanism used for town planning schemes to rural areas Adopting Magarpatta Township model, where a modern township is built by 120 farmers by pooling 400 acres of land near Pune Distributing load of land acquisition over a larger area and larger number of landowners, avoiding displacing anyonee