At a seminar on land use planning held at the National Centre for Agricultural Economics and Policy Research, New Delhi, in 1997, activist Sulabha Brahme stated: "The Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) has so far acquired 35,000 hectares of land over 200 locations... It has planned land acquisition for 120 industrial areas/estates covering 30,000 hectares of land... Nine large industrial townships with sizes ranging from 2,000 to 7,000 hectares are planned... MIDC is also planning deluxe industrial estates for attracting NRIs and foreign companies... Land is being acquired by the government for private hotel industry and tourism development."  No wonder the MIDC website proudly proclaims that by 2002 it possessed more than 52,000 hectares of land with plans to acquire another 35,000 hectares.

In the neighbouring state, MIDC's counterpart, the Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC), expanded its ownership from 14,000 hectares in 2005 to 34,000 hectares in mid-2006. In November 2007, Tamil Nadu released its new industrial policy and announced that it would develop a land bank of 4,000 hectares to promote industrial development in the state.

This hunger for agricultural land continues unabated. Between 2002 and 2007, about 90,000 hectares of agricultural land across 25 mandals in and around Hyderabad have been diverted for real estate speculation and mega-projects. Another 63,000 hectares across 20 mandals of Ranga Reddy district have been lost over the past 10 years.  These figures have been reported in a paper published in the August 4-10, 2007, issue of the Economic and Political Weekly by V R Reddy and B Suresh Reddy who estimated that a mind-boggling 5 lakh hectares of agricultural land have been lost in Andhra Pradesh in recent years. The authors feel this is a conservative estimate.

While the prime minister was at least trying to appear as if he was not advocating the poaching of agricultural land, some state governments have not bothered with such niceties. Take Chhattisgarh, where 80% of the population depends on agriculture. The state government's Vision 2010 document states: "The existing rules prevent the diversion of agricultural land for industrial use. The state would simplify the procedures of diverting land from agricultural to industrial use." To achieve this, the state proposes that agriculture be left to the 30% of farmers who presently control 70% of the agricultural land!

Besides industrialisation, agricultural land is also being gobbled up at an unprecedented rate in the name of infrastructure development. In some cases, the scale may be smaller, as with the World Bank-funded Allahabad bypass project which led to the acquisition of 781 hectares of prime cropland. Or it may be huge as in the case of the Ganga expressway project in Uttar Pradesh, which is expected to acquire 63,110 hectares. The Gangetic plains hold arguably the most fertile land in the country, and 70% of the land earmarked for the project is agricultural land owned and cultivated by farmers.

The National Highway Development Programme Phase V plans to widen 6,500 km of existing four-lanes to six-lane highways. Across the countryside, about 146,000 km of new roads are planned, and a dedicated programme, the Pradhan Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojana, has been going on since 2001-02. The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, meeting on January 10, 2007, called for an amendment of land acquisition laws to enable the speedy acquisition of agricultural land for Rs 5,000 crore railway expansion projects.

There's more. To sustain the 18% growth in the civil aviation sector, the government is planning to redevelop 45 big and small airports around the country. Foreign equity of up to 100% has been permitted through automatic approvals for greenfield airports.  The recently-cleared Greater Noida airport near New Delhi will involve the acquisition of 1,500 hectares of farmland. Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) and the Haryana state government have jointly proposed a greenfield international-airport-cum-cargo-airport at Jhajjar, near Gurgaon, for which 4,347 hectares have been earmarked. If similar demands to build new airports come up from 20 cities or SEZs, 50,000-80,000 hectares of farmland would disappear.

When the State itself goes about brazenly acquiring agricultural land and violating the principles of the National Land Use Policy Outline, can the private sector be far behind? In fact, the area be