Economic Studies - Mphil Thesis
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://kr.cup.edu.in/handle/32116/139
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Item Socio-Economic Implications of Agrarian land acquisition: A case study of Talwandi Sabo power limited, Mansa ( district).(Central University of Punjab, 2016) Kaur, Jashanpreet; Kaur, SandeepIndia has been facing many problems for the acquisition of the land for the establishment of developmental projects. The agrarian land acquisition has become a serious issue for this. Most of the studies have tried to find out the immediate impact of the land acquisition. After the land acquisition, what type of problems being faced by the land dispossessors have been ignored by many studies. Therefore, the present study has tried to analyze the major requirements and problems faced by the people after the development of the thermal plant. The study also examines the pre and post struggle faced by the land dispossessors. The study concerns with the impact of the large-scale agrarian land acquisition in the context of economic conditions, environment, and health of the local livelihoods. It was in September 2008, the Government of Punjab inaugurated a thermal power plant of 1980 megawatt with three units 660 MW of each in the Banawala village in Mansa district. The 2100 acres agrarian land area was acquired by the State Government of Punjab for setting up thermal power plant from four villages named Banawala, Peron, Raipur and Talwandi Aklia in Mansa district. More than 80 percent landholding villagers were not in favour of the construction of thermal power plant on their land. In Banawala village, the total land is 2900 acre out of which 1450.375 acres was acquired under v TSPL, people have lost their half proportion of land in the process of land acquisition. Total 130 respondents were surveyed out of which 70 land dispossessors, 30 labourers through snowball sampling from purposively selected four villages and 30 employees were selected conveniently from the thermal plant. The majority of the people engaged in agricultural activities before and after land acquisition but the real income of farmers has decreased after land acquisition due to a reduction in the size of their agricultural land and also their engagement in the other allied activities. As a result size of land holdings, return from the crops, 'leased in' and ,leased out, activities, the number of diary animals, agricultural particulars also adversely affected. The average size of land holdings has declined after the land acquisition i.e. from 4.05 hectare to 2.46 hectare. Total owned land has decreased from 283.53 hectares to 120.39 hectares. The compensation amount given to the farmers ranged between from Rs. 9.40 lakhs per acre to Rs. 15.40 lakhs per acre, including displacement allowances, which was less than the announced amount. The study concludes that the problems of land acquisition are due to follow reasons: paying less compensation to the land owners, land acquired for the private projects in the name of public purpose, not providing the alternative source of income to the affected people and ignoring the agricultural labourers. The study suggests that the compensation amount being decided by the government should be based on the actual market price. It also suggests that the government should re-evaluate the existing land acquisition norms in India. The agricultural land acquired for the purpose of development projects will make the agricultural population unemployed due to the multiples externalities of the projects, which are unskilled to fetch other jobs apart from aggravating the problem of food security in future.