One Hundred Thousand Crore Problem !

Mittal Steel today announced that it will apply in four weeks for land to set up its 12-million tonne steel plant in Jharkhand. Sanak Mishra , the CEO, of Mittal’s Jharkhand Greenfield Project, said that the company needed about 12000 acres of land. This will not be easy for the man who is basking under the glory of taking over Arcelor. Chief Minister, Arjun Munda, after his euphoric MOU signing spree to the tune of 100,000 crores, is slowly beginning to realise this. Land and mining rights which are central to all these MOUs will ultimately determine their fate.

What Mittal Steel has done today, the Birla’s and the Essar’s will do tomorrow. The Tata Group has already identified land for its 25,000 crore expansion drive. Even by conservative estimates all this translates into making available more than 25,000 acres of land. Munda will have to do an act akin to the Great Indian Rope trick to pull this off. The reason is simple. Local tenancy laws have ensured that almost all non-urban land rests with the Schedule Tribes. STs constitute 26% of the state population. Add another 10% of the Scheduled Castes and we have 36% of the population which has reasons to feel uncomfortable about the whole scenario. Nor does the answer lie in the forests. Around 28% of all the land in Jharkhand is under forest cover but unfortunately for Munda, more than 27% of those are “Reserved Forests” and “Protected Forests”, which means that the state cannot use it for other purposes. It is obvious that in his jest for signing MOUs one after the other, the Chief Minster overlooked these issues.

The political ramifications of this are no less significant. There is a feeling among the STs that all these development projects are only going to further alienate them. Previous experience with PSUs like Coal India Limited and the NTPC wherein a large number of people were displaced without and any adequate rehabilitation scheme, has only made the people suspicious of the government. Already voices of protest can be heard from the villages. In a state where the 18 out 22 districts are Naxalite affected, this is the opportunity the Maoists need to galvanize people in a major anti government movement. The government has not announced any policy in this regard apart from the rhetoric of “people friendly policies”. There are many Kalinganagars waiting to erupt in the state.

The future of the Munda government can also become shaky. The government enjoys power with a razor thin majority of one MLA. The coalition could be cobbled together at the eleventh hour only with the support of five Independent MLAs. When the going gets tough there is no telling which way the “Independents” will go. Has Munda bitten off more than he can chew?

This is an analysis of a report that appeared in The Telegraph dated 17th August about Mittal's application for land in Jharkhand.