It happens only in India. One Mamata Banerjee, 40,000 furious protesters and a coalition of unnatural allies shut down a highway, hold a state to ransom and drive out an iconic investor like Ratan Tata and investments worth Rs 1,500 crore. It didn't matter to the politicians that this also meant loss of 10,000 jobs that would have been created. Ranging from the Jamat-e-Islami to Samajwadi Party to CPI-ML and activists like Medha Patkar, many have forged a common cause in questioning the allotment of farm land to Tatas. West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi has met Trinamool Congress representatives thrice in a valiant attempt to forge a solution, but with elections round the corner most leaders fear any political solution will suffer rhetorical attacks. The saving grace is that the Tatas yet call it only a "suspension" of operations leaving a window open for the politicians to come to their senses. Sure, the theory is that investments lead to creation of jobs, generation of revenue and all round development. But politics is about the immediate not the future, not when the polls are round the bend. Mamata may be seen as the face of the anti-industrialisation lobby but she is not the only politician opposing acquisition of farm land for industry. From Narayan Rane in Maharashtra who opposed the allotment of land to Videocon to Kuldeep Bishnoi in Haryana, who opposed allotment of land to Reliance Industries' special economic zone (SEZ), to V.S. Achuthanandan in Kerala, who is opposing any and all development, politicians cutting across party lines seem to see reason to block corporate plans. As electoral interests of a party or individual clash with what is deemed to be investment in the state's interest, parties and politicians have predictably chosen to protect their votebanks first. It is not just the Nano project which has suffered. Mega ventures like the steel plants of Posco, Arcelor Mittal, Essar, Jindals, bauxite mining project of Vedanta and the SEZs Of Reliance and Videocon have been held up by protests against land acquisition. At stake are over 20 mega projects across India with proposed investments of over Rs 2,33,000 crore or nearly three times the total foreign direct investment India received last year. Notwithstanding the India story, the stark reality is that India stands out as perhaps the only emerging economic powerhouse with a huge line-up of infrastructure projects requiring huge tracts of land which does not have a modern land acquisition law. Or, for that matter, a Resettlement and Rehabilitation (R&R) policy. Price discovery is a complex issue and the pitfalls are huge. "Land is acquired from farmers at a price lower than the market value. But once the project kicks off, the price of land in the area shoots up," says Union Commerce Secretary Gopal Pillai. Singur farmers were paid Rs 8.5 lakh per acre for single-crop land and Rs 12 lakh per acre for double-crop land, but today industrial plots in Singur are selling for as high as Rs 40 lakh an acre. The number and intensity of protests in the countryside have gone up, but they cannot be tackled with laws that are out of sync with reality. Even after 61 years of independence, India is still clinging on to the Land Acquisition Act of 1894 that was promulgated by the British. It governs acquisition of land for industrial projects, SEZs and "public purposes". There is no consensus even over what exactly constitutes public purposes in the context of buying land and zoning laws add to the troubles. Obviously a calibrated policy on transfer of assets from farmers to entrepreneurs is required. The thought did occur to the UPA Government but action has been caught up in political and bureaucratic red tape. In December 2005, the UPA's National Advisory Council (NAC) brought out a fresh draft rehabilitation policy. But the council soon became defunct in March 2006 after the resignation of Sonia Gandhi as its chairperson, and the R&R policy was cast aside for a while. The UPA Government dumped the NAC draft in a meeting of a group of secretaries on May 2, 2006 and, later in October, presented its own version of a national R&R policy. Since then the draft policy is stuck in the maze of babudom. Although the first draft was okayed in October 2007 and a National Rehabilitation Commission too was proposed there is no sight of the R&R package despite nearly three years of debate since December 2005. Projects in trouble Singur, West Bengal: 997 acre Tata Steel, Chhattisgarh: 3,000 acre Tata Steel, Jharkhand: 5,000 acre Tata Steel, Orissa: 2,000 acre Posco Steel, Orissa: 4,000 acre Arcelor Mittal Steel Plant, Orissa: 7,000 acre Salim Group Industrial HUB, Nandigram, W. Bengal: 25,000 acre JSPL Steel Plant, Orissa: 3,100 acre Reliance SEZ, Gurgaon: 25,000 acre Chamalapura Power Plant, Mysore: 3,000 acre Vedanta Mining Project, Orissa: 4,000 acre Videocon SEZ, Pune: 4,500 acre The cost of delay could be colossal, warns Amit Mitra, noted economist and secretary general of FICCI. "Just Bengal could lose Rs 1,93,000 crore investments spread over 64 projects which are in the pipeline, including Jindal's steel plant. Moreover, there are 38 SEZs with investments of Rs 40,000 crore. How will these be implemented if industry starts walking out," says Mitra. Union Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh is keen on getting the proposed Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill, 2007, and the Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2007, through the House in the forthcoming October session if it happens. The anxiety is not surprising, given that an overhaul of the Land Acquisition Act had become a prestige issue for the UPA whose policies were largely seen as driving SEZs with their huge demands for land. The Government has hence taken extra efforts to finalise the policy, referring the final draft to a Group of Ministers followed by discussions with environmentalists like Medha Patkar. It then sent the bill to the Parliamentary Standing Committee headed by former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh in December 2007 to get the views of a wide cross section of experts and political leaders comprising the panel. "The committee has met 14 times to minutely examine each and every aspect of the bill. We are ushering in the most radical and sweeping changes which answer many of the concerns that the earlier law failed to address," says Kalyan. A sneak preview of UPA's new deal for farmers by both Kalyan and Raghuvansh shows a shift from a pro-acquirer to a pro-farmer policy. For starters, all projects will have to go through a social impact assessment which will take into account the impact that the project will have on public property, assets and infrastructure. The policy also raises the premium over price to be paid to farmers from 30 per cent to 60 per cent of the market value. All payments will be made before transfer of ownership as part of the new policy's focus on rehabilitation before displacement. The new policy clears the air on acquisition of land for public purposes. The projects related to strategic naval, military, or air force as well as those related to infrastructure like electricity, roads, airports, rail, mining and water supply will be treated as public purpose. India Inc would have to buy 70 per cent of the total required land directly from farmers. The Government would step in to buy the rest 30 per cent only if the owners refuse to yield. What West Bengal could lose Rs 1,93,000 crore worth investments spread over 64 projects in the pipeline, including Jindal