The new government at the Centre is expected to address the unfinished reform agenda to free up the land market that has a crucial bearing on the $1.4 trillion infrastructure-led push for faster economic growth. In its first term, the NDA regime sought to amend the previous UPA regime’s Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement legislation through an ordinance but did not succeed due to a political backlash. A functioning land market is imperative as India is becoming less of an agrarian economy due to the accelerating shift in population from the villages to the towns. This process of modern development, however, is far from peaceful or orderly. It is, in fact, highly conflict-prone as land acquisition for setting up factories, dams and highways are being contested by villagers, including tribals, who believe their land is being acquired—mostly by the Indian State—for a song. Land acquisition was an important factor behind a big-ticket FDI steel project in Odisha being shelved seven years ago. This has also bedeviled the bullet train project between Ahmedabad and Mumbai, dedicated freight and industrial corridors and smart city projects. The upshot is that land acquisition remains a contested terrain.

Revisiting land reform post-elections entails changes in land use policies for urban, forest and agricultural land to ensure that infrastructure creation is not impacted by acquisition problems. The incoming government may pick low-hanging fruits like completing the Digital Land Records Modernization Programme and Bhu-Aadhar or Unique Land Parcel Identification Number to make it easier for bank lending for projects where land is the collateral as well as bringing down land disputes.

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