The balance between agricultural development and economic development is delicate and it may, at times, be very difficult for bureaucrats and policy decision-makers to perceive. Thus, the interpretation, insofar as India is concerned, should lean towards agriculture, the Madras High Court said on Monday while quashing a land acquisition notification for the Chennai-Salem greenfield expressway.
In a judgment running to 115-pages, Justices T.S. Sivagnanam and V. Bhavani Subbaroyan said the Centre had justified the proposal to lay the expressway through fertile wetlands, water sources and reserve forest areas on grounds that it would reduce average travelling time between the two destinations from 5.45 hours to 2.3 hours, save 10.4 crore litres of diesel per year and promote industrialisation in backward areas.
Source of livelihood
“What has been lost sight of is the fact that agriculture is the main part of the economy and source of livelihood of rural India. The land of an agriculturist is vital to sustain his livelihood. India being predominantly an agricultural society, there is a strong bond between the land owner and his land. The land provides dignity for the person. It provides a source of livelihood. Therefore, any dent on this source of livelihood should be viewed with utmost seriousness.
“If the State fails to do so, it will be failing in the public trust reposed on it. The State being the trustee is bound to protect life and livelihood of agriculturists. It is bound to protect the natural resources, the forest, flora and fauna. If there is failure to do so, it will result in disastrous consequences, much of which will be irreversible,” the judges said.
They took note that the Centre had not disclosed any rehabilitation and resettlement plan for the losers of agricultural land.
Expressing serious displeasure over the “great haste” shown by the Centre as well as the State government to implement the project, the judges said, “Peaceful protests were stifled, unwritten gag orders were promulgated and police force was used to handle the protesters who were making a request to spare them and their lands. Only after this court intervened (by passing interim orders), these high-handed actions had subsided.”
Though it was brought to the notice of the court that some land owners had surrendered their lands for the project, the Bench said: “We are not concerned with those people who are willing to run the risk and it is up to them to seek sane advice. We are more concerned about the innocent people who are not aware of their rights, all that they know is that they will not be able to survive without their agricultural lands. The nature of attachment to their land is inseparable.
Public hearing
“Therefore, before seeking prior environmental clearance, it is necessary that a public hearing is held before any such project is implemented... To understand the impact of the project vis-a-vis the object with which National Highways Authority of India is said to have conceived the project, it is essential that the people who are likely to be affected, if not all, at least few of them should be heard in the matter. This procedure, if adopted, will ensure fairness and reasonableness.”
The judges also pointed out that the Centre had not explained the reason for having dropped the proposal to widen the Chennai-Madurai economic corridor from the Bharatmala Pariyojana Phase-I and instead included the Chennai-Salem expressway without the approval of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs chaired by the Prime Minister.
In fact, though a private consultant was engaged only to study the Chennai-Madurai economic corridor, the latter was, through an “unheard of practice” of oral orders, asked to study and submit a feasibility report on Chennai-Salem project.
Mistakes in report
Referring to several mistakes in the consultant’s feasibility report which had references to benefits that would accrue to women in China because of the project, the judges said, it appeared to be a copy, paste job from some other foreign reports and displayed total non-application of mind.
They also wondered how the report could have been prepared within a short period of 60 days when even the U.S. takes years together to prepare a report on joining two highways.
In so far as the effect on forest and wildlife due to the proposed alignment for Chennai-Salem corridor was concerned, the judges said, it was better to learn from mistakes of the past and avoid laying of highways through reserve forests. They said, increasing number of human-animal conflicts and ills such as poaching and illegal felling of trees were happening in hill stations and other places only due to laying of roads through forests in the past.
