Bhubaneswar, April 2: Landlosers in Odisha have to pay a heavy price for parting with their patch for industrial purpose, thanks to the absence of any specific policy in this regard in the state.

In many cases, the procedure of land acquisition has been violated. The government acquired the land on behalf of companies from farmers at the government price, depriving them of the market value.

These are the some of the revelations made by the comptroller and auditor general (CAG) in his report placed before the Odisha Assembly.

In 176 land acquisition cases, including for the proposed Posco project in Paradip, 8,484.788 acres were acquired at Rs 511.29 crore by the Odisha government on behalf of 12 promoters of private industries and one project set up on public-private partnership. The land was acquired at the government rate.

However, during investigation, it was found that though the land was acquired for the industries, the cost of acquisition in all these cases were borne by the promoters of industries and not by the government. “When the cost of the acquisition was paid by the companies, the landlosers should be paid market value for the land,” the CAG report stated.

The farmers, who have handed over their land for mega projects such as Posco in Paradip and Vedanta Alumina in Kalahandi, have not received compensation at the market price.

The CAG report pointed out that in the Industrial Policy Resolution (IPR) 2001, the Odisha government had committed to launch a land bank scheme through the Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation by earmarking government land and acquiring private land to set up industries.

The government had also committed in the Industrial Policy Resolutions, 2007, for formulating a “land policy” to address all issues concerning identification, acquisition and allotment of land for industrial and allied purposes, including creation of associated social infrastructure. However, neither did the state government implement the “land bank” scheme, nor did they frame any land policy, the CAG report observed.

Similarly, the area under cultivation in Odisha was reduced by 1.17 lakh hectares during 2005-10. Land put to use for non-agricultural purposes increased by 2.99 lakh hectares during the same period. The revenue department allotted 50,276.887 acres, including 3.33 lakh acres (66.34 per cent) of acquired private land.

The land acquisition officers deprived the landlosers of compensation based on current market rates and consequently transferred the benefit of differential price of land at the time of acquisition and passing of award to the private companies, noted the report.