WHAT do you do when you receive a terse notice from the government demanding that you surrender your land at a price that is not even one-hundredth of its market value? What are your options when that land is your main, if not the sole, source of livelihood, and is being acquired for a state-of-the-art airport and a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) project that does not remotely relate to your skills and will not benefit you?
The people of Shivangaon, a village bordering Nagpur’s Sonegaon airport did what any sane person would do. They made representations to the Maharashtra government not to apply the Land Acquisition Act of 1894 for compulsory land takeover affecting nearly 50,000 people. They wrote countless petitions to the Centre, and to the leaders of the state’s ruling coalition and to the opposition. When these fell on deaf ears, they launched peaceful protests, beginning with a relay hunger strike by 20 to 50 people from dawn to dusk, everyday. That continued for more than eight months. Sadly, that had no effect on the Maharashtra government, which is completely sold on a grandiose Rs 2,581 crore project called MIHAN (Maharashtra Multi-Modal International Hub Airport at Nagpur), being promoted by the state-sponsored Maharashtra Airport Development Company (MADC).
MIHAN was floated explicitly to “firmly put India on the fast track to economic superstardom”, no less. When their protests were ignored, the people of Shivangaon escalated their intensity. First, all the male adults shaved their heads. Then, all the boys got themselves tonsured. And two months ago, so did some 90 women - an extraordinary move signifying the distress of widowhood in a traditional Hindu family. Shivangaon is bang in the middle of a prosperous belt growing oranges, for which Nagpur is famous. It is one of the 13 villages, which will be affected by MIHAN, five of which are within Nagpur’s municipal limits.
Most of Shivangaon’s land is irrigated. Besides wheat, soyabean and cotton, it also cultivates green vegetables for the urban market. The area has about 15,000 buffaloes and cows and supplies 30,000 litres of milk to Nagpur, on a daily basis. Shivangaon has a history of participation in the freedom struggle. Its literacy rate exceeds 95 per cent. It counts many educated professionals and graduates among its inhabitants. Its people are economically and politically savvy. They recall that the original Nagpur airport was built on ‘their’ land, acquired in 1937. They say they have always had a raw deal on land. “We have been repeatedly asked to surrender land - for the Nagpur Improvement Trust, for an industrial estate, for a dairy project, and then in the early 1990s, for a project of the Indian Air Force called ‘Gajraj’ after the IL-76 transport aircraft,” Mr Baba Daware, one of the leaders of the protests, told me in Shivangaon.
Shivangaon is seething with anger. MIHAN is yet to receive environmental clearance, but the land acquisition process has already begun. More than 20 lucrative contracts have been awarded. Construction has begun. A 22,000 sq mt Central Facility Building is expected to be completed by July. Much of the work on internal roads, totalling 52 km in length, is nearing completion. Pillars have already been installed on a 2.7-km flyover connecting the National Highway 7 to the SEZ.
MIHAN will colonise and eliminate several villages and render their people landless - without rehabilitation. In a January 2 reply under a Right to Information Act application, the Nagpur district rehabilitation officer has clarified that there is ‘no notification’ for their rehabilitation under the relevant law. The people must accept whatever compensation is given to them under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 - and demand no more. Indeed, those who wanted to take the meagre compensation under protest and then approach the courts for a final settlement were told in writing that they must sign an affidavit solemnly forswearing further appeal or litigation. But it is patently illegal to coerce people to surrender their constitutional right to justice. On January 10, the villagers took to the streets in a novel way. They marched with 7,000 buffaloes and cows to block a highway. The have since also gheraoed officials and engineers who were trying to fence village lands for MIHAN.
Under MIHAN, MADC will acquire a total of 4,354 hectares (10,760 acres) of land, of which 1,278 ha will be earmarked for the airport, and 2,086 for an SEZ, termed ‘free trade paradise’ by MADC. This includes 500 ha for information technology parks, 955 ha for manufacturing units, 60 ha for a ‘health city,’ and 200 ha for a rail-cum-road terminal. This new city will have numerous residential complexes, hotels and entertainment facilities, and its own power plant, water supply, sewerage and other utilities. Why, it will even have a posh school, ‘international’ of course, spread over 13 ha. The idea is to create a whole new entity called Mihanpur, which will ‘twin’ Nagpur, much like Secunderabad does Hyderabad, and become “India’s fastest-growing cosmopolitan city”.
The people of the affected villages are furious with MADC. They are willing to sell their land, but at market value, so that they can find alternative plots not too far away and still earn a livelihood. The going rate in the area is Rs 2 to 4 crore per acre! This isn’t an exaggeration. However, MADC is offering a pathetic Rs 1 to 2 lakh an acre.
What makes the MIHAN land business doubly iniquitous, indeed repugnant, is the spectacular irrationality of the project. As this column has often argued, SEZs lack economic logic, drain the exchequer through unconscionable tax breaks, and promote distorted enclave-style growth. Most are ‘sweetheart deals’ and land-grab operations. This criticism applies even more strongly to the MIHAN SEZ. Because it is situated right next door to Nagpur’s emerging IT and industrial development centres, it will act as a parasite on them, killing deserving young units. However, even more irrational is the ‘hub’ airport idea. The model is used by a number of US airlines, but has no takers in India. There is no reason why the government should spend thousands of crores to create such a hub when there is no perceived demand for it.
More importantly, the Nagpur airport is puny in relation to other big cities. The number of domestic passengers using the airport was 65,301 or about 2,000 per day, and annually well under 8,00,000. Although this has grown faster (48 per cent) than the national average of 31 per cent, it is still tiny by Indian standards. Nagpur’s traffic is about half the level of Guwahati, Goa or Jaipur. In totality (international and domestic traffic), it hardly counts. It makes no sense to increase Nagpur’s passenger handling capacity 18-fold to 14 million a year and its cargo handling level, at present 910 tonnes, to 8,70,000 tonnes, as MIHAN plans to do. The Nagpur airport has been making losses adding up to Rs 85 crore over four years. The Rs 2,581 crore MIHAN will send the losses spiralling into the future. MIHAN will become a monument to the folly of promoting mega-projects at the expense of working people. The people will resist. In Shivangaon, hundreds have solemnly pledged that they will commit suicide, but not surrender. We must sincerely hope that they win, and that Nagpur does not witness another Nandigram and Vidarbha, yet another suicide wave - after thousands of cotton farmers have killed themselves.
© Copyright Navhind Papers & Publications Ltd.
Praful Bidwai, a fellow of the Transnational Institute, is a senior Indian journalist, political activist and widely published commentator. He is a co-author (with Achin Vanaik) of New Nukes: India, Pakistan and Global Nuclear Disarmament.
