Chandigarh, July 20
The Haryana Cabinet has approved an innovative Land Pooling Scheme (LPS) to make the farmers of the state stake holders in the projects undertaken by the government after acquiring their land. Haryana has introduced this initiative to reduce protests and agitations by farmers, who feel cheated when the government makes huge profits over lands acquired from them for a pittance.

CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda said the LPS would be applicable in those cases where land is acquired for residential and industrial projects.

The Cabinet decision has come at a time when the Haryana Government is facing a series of protests over land acquisition, particularly for Gorakhpur Nuclear Power Plant. Unveiling the “farmer-friendly” policy Hooda said the scheme provided an option to the landowner-farmers to get ‘developed land’ in return for the acquired land.

Under the scheme, a landowner will get a 1000 square yard residential plot and one commercial plot of 100 square yard for one acre of land acquired by the state government for development of residential sectors by Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA). However, in the case of Industries Department, where infrastructure is developed by the Haryana State Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC), the farmer would have the option to get developed land measuring 1200 square yards for one acre of the land acquired. The scheme is purely optional for the landowners, Hooda added. YS Malik, Principal Secretary (Industries), said under the Land Acquisition and R & R Policy of 2010, the state government observed a perception among the landowners that the government’s development agencies like HUDA and the HSIIDC sold the developed plots at higher rates as compared to the compensation given to the land-owners.

“This perception is because the common man does not fully understand the dynamics of pricing of developed land, especially that about 50 per cent of the gross area gets utilised for various infrastructure facilities e.g. roads, services, public utilities and open spaces and huge expenditure is incurred on development of infrastructure facilities,” Malik argued.

In fact, in a bid to attract the farmers to the LPS scheme, landowner will have the option to request for payment of part amount upfront at the time of announcement of the award and adjust the balance amount at the time of floatation of plots after accounting for interest applied at a rate of nine per cent per annum on the advance amount paid.

Malik disclosed that landowner would be eligible to participate in the LPS only if a minimum of 1000 square yards or more land was acquired for development of residential schemes by HUDA and only if a minimum of ½ acre or more of his land is acquired in the case of development for industrial infrastructure by the HSIIDC.

The landowner would be required to communicate his option in writing to the Land Acquisition Collector at any time within a period of four months of the issuance of Section 4 notification.