LAND ACQUISITION EFFECTS ONCAPITAL BASE OF AFFECTED PERSONS

Structural changes in land-use are incumbently required from long termeconomic perspective  but land supply from traditional and native sector to globally oriented modern sector is not smooth and fast due to sectoral dualism, and to overcome the mismatch an unwarranted insistence is placed on ‘eminent domain’ of land acquisition and displacement (LAD). The underlying justification for state-assisted provision of requisite land and accompanying resources to industrial and commercial sectors is a value loaded developmental imperative. On the other hand, development caused process of LAD makes drastic changes in the productive base of affected persons, especially the poor ones for whom land happens to be an exclusive source of survival and sustenance. It is because of the inherent limitations of articulation of public interest to the exclusion of affected persons resulting into insufficient and insensitive compensatory entitlements.

Based upon participatory observations, this article provides a critique of monetary compensation as practiced in India and its effects upon the land-losers. Inter alia, it aims at hypothesizing and deducing a theoretical description of capital base meltdown (CBM) of affected persons occurring as a devastating consequence of LAD.