How private airlines destroyed Indian aviation Private-sector lobbying has led to long-term harm

It is generally agreed that Indian aviation has failed to achieve the potential that the country offers. Whilst most have attributed the industry's lack of robustness to unclear government policies, high operational costs, and so on, few have ever cited the role of private Indian carriers in influencing policies.

Since such instances haven't been tabulated, one is oblivious to the scale of havoc caused. If quantified, the financial loss alone would run into crores of rupees besides the harm it has caused to the industry.

Perhaps the first instance of blatant interference in getting a policy tweaked was when the entry into the sector of theTatas and Singapore Airlines was blocked in 1997. The revised policy ensured that no foreign airline could invest in an Indian carrier even while Kuwait Airways and Gulf Air owned a 20 per cent stake each in Jet Airways. The revised policy also gave Jet Airways time to buy back the stakes.

A couple of years later when Tata-Singapore Airlinessubmitted a proposal to acquire a 40 per cent stake in Air India, mischief was again in evidence. Singapore Airlines was forced to opt out of the race citing opposition. The intent was clear: an existing airline did not want a strong competitor in a rejuvenated Tata-Singapore Airlines-managed Air India. Imagine: if a Tata-Singapore Airlines-managed Air India had indeed become a reality, taxpayers wouldn't have had to fund the national carrier's bailout at a cost of Rs 30,000 crore. Air India, under the new management, would also have been an airline to contend with and not what it has become today.

In the previous decade, the government, with Praful Patel as the civil aviation minister, saw the introduction of an irrational 5/20 policy. This helped only one private airline at that time and barred others who did not possess five years of domestic flying experience and a fleet of 20 aircraft from taking to international skies. The current aviation minister, Ashok Gajapati Raju, is now seeking to do away with it. For that particular airline, this policy meant a lot. It could for some years reap the advantage of being India's only international airline besides Air India, whose ethnic traffic it could encroach upon to fill up its flights.

If crony capitalism has been beneficial for some, it has also unwittingly taken a toll of at least one airline. The 5/20 policy was a contributing factor in financially crippling Kingfisher. In his quest to fly internationally without waiting to complete the requisite five years, Vijay Mallya bought over Air Deccan, which was soon becoming eligible for international operations, at a price that defied logic. Kingfisher Airlines eventually perished under the weight of debt.

Air India was often "forced" to withdraw flights from certain sectors by citing "economical unviability". It wasn't a coincidence to see a private airline mount flights soon thereafter with market and passengers offered on a platter by the obliging national carrier.

No less intriguing has been studied silence of private airlines when seats were being recklessly doled out to foreign airlines though the policy was destined to harm them too, not just Air India. And today, we have the situation of Indian carriers failing to make a mark on the international routes with foreign airlines not only having been given a head-start but also a stranglehold on Indian market. The promoters of Indian carriers simply ignored the question of how their fund-starved carriers would compete on their home turf with mega global carriers bestowed with disproportionate quantum of seats and flights.

The way the Jet Airways-Etihad agreement was facilitated was yet another instance of external factors influencing a decision. The government granted 37,000 additional seats to Abu Dhabi, over and above the existing 13,000 seats, to help Etihad acquire a 24 per cent stake in Jet Airways.

Even though other Indian airlines and airports, notably private-run airports at Delhi and Mumbai, realised how the Jet-Etihad combination and the accompanying huge quantum of seats would take away their business and harm their long-term interests, they did nothing except voicing concerns to the civil aviation ministry.

As if no lessons were needed to be learnt for putting the sector on track, some carriers have, in fact, facilitated their political masters' wrongdoing. When Gulf countries sought additional seats, some Indian carriers at the slightest prodding gave it in writing that they needed additional seats. This helped build a case for doling out seats to foreign carriers while the records showed that the ministry was only acquiescing to the requests of Indian carriers. These carriers haven't used a single additional seat so far.

The mess that we witness today is thus not only a consequence of flawed government policies but also constant meddling and complicit silence of some Indian carriers. Do they deserve sympathy for the poor financial state of their airlines? Perhaps not, given the harm they have caused to the industry.

Monitor the dangers of pollution

The easiest way to clear air pollution is to not know how bad it is. This is what India practices - in most parts of the country. There is virtually no equipment to monitor the air we breathe and no system that tells us what we should do when pollution levels are up and unhealthy.

In fact, it is only in Delhi that there is some infrastructure to check air quality. The Delhi Pollution Control Committee(DPCC) has six automatic air-monitoring stations spread across the city. For most of the time these work, and data is available in real time. In addition, the Central Pollution Control Board has five automatic stations for real-time monitoring. But strangely, it does not check for Delhi's key pollutant, PM2.5 - the small air toxin, which is particularly bad for health. Then, the ministry of earth sciences (because of the Commonwealth Games) set up 10 stations, including one each in Noida and Gurgaon. Since this premier scientific agency gives only an index - a number computed on the basis of its readings, to determine air quality - it is difficult to read or compare. So while Delhi has 19 stations, the data which is available on a daily basis are only from the four or five working stations of the DPCC.

This is still much better than the rest of the country. TheHaryana State Pollution Control Board has three stations in the national capital region, one each in Gurgaon, Faridabad and Rohtak. But currently, the data are not available on a daily real-time basis. Why? Either because the high-tech machines are out of order or because the software that would collate and transmit the data is not working. Across the country, there exist only 22 continuous monitoring stations that can check pollution in real time. Of these, data are available for only 12 stations - and worse, not a single station checks for PM2.5 (except for one location in Navi Mumbai, but here also the data are old).

We need information about air quality, as it is and at all times, so that you and I can take precautions. The air quality index (AQI) is a globally established tool to define how air pollution levels impact human health. Last month, India also launched its AQI, which for the first time tells us the health risk associated with poor air quality. For instance, the national standard (measured over a 24-hour average) for PM2.5 is 60 micrograms a cubic metre, and if the level is higher than 250 micrograms a cubic metre, then the air is classified as "severely polluted". The health advisory is that this pollution "may cause respiratory effects even on healthy people and it would have serious health impacts on people with lung or heart disease". In other words, this air is harmful for our health.

Globally, the AQI is linked to the precautions people need to take and the steps the city government should take to combat pollution. So Beijing closes schools on red alert days; Paris does not allow diesel cars inside the city on its smoggy days. Data are used to inform and then to act.

In India we can't do this. We do not have the network of stations (except in Delhi) that can inform us on a real-time basis of the dangers. What we have are some 580 manual stations to collect samples and send them for analysis in laboratories. These manual stations can give daily average data after 24 hours and that, too, only if someone collects, analyses and manually puts the information in the public domain, and does it regularly. This is rarely done - most data are over two years old - especially because no one asks for the data. So once again we do not know and the convenient corollary is the air must be clean.

It is also a fact that India cannot afford, financially or technically, the 1,000-odd automatic stations it would need. Each real-time monitoring station costs roughly Rs 1 crore. It will cost 18-20 per cent of this annually for maintenance and then more for running the stations. In contrast, a manual station is only Rs 8-10 lakh at the most, with relatively nominal operational costs.

We need a jugaad solution for monitoring air quality. At the Centre for Science and Environment, my colleagues have bought a portable machine that can check our exposure to bad air. It gives us information to act. This is what we need much more of. We need to innovate to set up new kinds of samplers, from roadside monitoring equipment and sensors to satellite-based monitors and everything else that tells us about the air quality and puts the information in our hands so that we can act.

Let's be clear: our air is not clean; we need to know exactly how bad it is, so that we stop inhaling poison with every breath we take.

Reform: so much, and so little How did so much reform happen in 1991 - and why so little in the decades since?

India started economic reforms in 1991 under P V Narasimha Rao's government with Manmohan Singh as the finance minister. While previous governments had shied away from reforms, the Rao government launched broad reforms encompassing the real, external, monetary, financial and fiscal sectors.

In a move from a command-and-control regime to a more market-based system, industrial licensing ended in 1991. The peak rate of basic customs duty on non-agricultural products was gradually reduced from over 300 per cent to 10 per cent in 2007-08. A liberal and unified exchange rate regime was implemented from March 1993; and current account convertibility from August 1994. Foreign direct investment was liberalised from July 1991.

Financial repression was eased by reducing statutory pre-emption through statutory liquidity ration (SLR) and cash reserve ratio (CRR). There was a calibrated graduation to international prudential standards. Interest rates were deregulated; control of capital issues removed; and the Securities and Exchange Board of India made functional to provide the regulatory platform. The fiscal deficit of the central government, which was 8.3 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 1990-91, was reduced to 5.7-5.9 per cent in the two subsequent years.

Mao's demise and Deng Xiaoping's rise as "paramount leader", along with the objective conditions, can explain how China embarked on its reforms in 1979. It is natural to ask what caused so much reform in India in 1991. When Deng started remaking China from the late 1970s, why did India continue with its old, ideologically oriented policies such as industrial licensing and restricted foreign trade?

With political turmoil, the late 1970s and the 1980s were not propitious for economic reform in India. Indira Gandhi's 21-month emergency ended in March 1977. Elections followed and the Janata Party, a coalition in the guise of a party, came to power. With its inherent contradictions and interpersonal conflicts, it could not focus on reforms and did not last beyond two and a half years. A much chastened Indira, not of the Garibi Hatao vintage, but more pragmatic and less ideological, returned to power on January 14, 1980. The accidental death of her younger son and anointed successor Sanjay on June 23, 1980, the scandal involving Antulay's Indira Pratisthan in 1981 and the violent Sikh separatist movement in Punjab intervened. These were enough to distract Indira from issues of economic reforms.

Rajiv Gandhi succeeded Indira Gandhi after her assassination on October 31, 1984. But after his landslide victory in the December 1984 election, "Mr Clean" soon got mired in the Bofors controversy, and lost the 1989 election. A coalition, the National Front, with outside support from the left parties and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), came to power on December 2, 1989, under Rajiv's rebellious former minister V P Singh. Singh's implementation of the Mandal commission report led to widespread violent protests. The Babri Masjid dispute agitated the nation. Singh did not last a year; the BJP withdrew support. Chandra Shekhar defected with 64 members of Parliament and formed a government on November 10, 1990, with outside Congress support. The tactical Congress support was withdrawn - ostensibly because of two Haryana policemen's suspicious activities near Rajiv's residence on March 2, 1991. Chandra Shekhar resigned on March 6, 1991. Fresh elections followed.

Rajiv was assassinated in Sriperumbudur on May 21, 1991, in the midst of the elections for the 10th Lok Sabha. The Congress did well in the post-assassination polling rounds, but not well enough to form a government on its own. Its minority government with outside support of the Left had Narasimha Rao as the prime minister. A dozen years after Deng started his reforms in China, India launched her own reforms.

The inherent difficulties of launching and sustaining reforms in a democracy are well known. Rob Jenkins argues that powerful opponents of reforms - for example, industrialists fearing foreign competition, and politicians and bureaucrats fearing the loss of illicit spoils of office - can team up and mobilise. Vicious charges of capitulation to foreign powers and betrayal of the socialist commitment to justice can be electorally effective. So how so much reform in 1991 in India, a vibrant democracy?

Some scholars, like Mr Jenkins, explain it by the ruling elite's astute tactical management in insulating economic reforms from mass politics. In a federal structure, state governments were left to perform many unpleasant tasks to deflect attention. The Babri Masjid got demolished in December 1992. According to Ashutosh Varshney, emotive issues such as Hindutva and caste-based reservations aroused great passion and anxiety and crowded economic reforms out of mass politics. It was "reform by stealth".

Furthermore, the reforms were launched in the midst of a balance of payments crisis and raging inflation. The "attractive" average annual growth of 5.4 per cent in the 1980s was on borrowed money. Serious macroeconomic and structural imbalances had built up. A crisis was brewing. The Gulf War, after Iraq's occupation of Kuwait in August 1990, blew the lid off this situation. The more-than-doubling of the oil price impacted India, a heavy importer of oil, very adversely both in terms of inflation and the balance of payments. Remittances from West Asia dried up. In July 1991, with less than a billion dollars in foreign currency reserves - enough only for paying for a fortnight's imports - reforms supported by standby arrangements from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) may have been more of a compulsive necessity than just an option.

In economic reforms, compared with China, India is a late starter. There was an overwhelmingly positive response of the Indian economy to the 1991 reforms in terms of growth, price stability and balance of payments. Yet, after starting late, reforms did not gather the same momentum as in China. As a result, India, in the first 22 years since the beginning of reforms in 1991-92, grew at an annual average compound rate of only 6.7 per cent. The corresponding rate in China in the first 22 years since 1979 was 9.7 per cent. So it is also natural to ask - why so little reform?

Perhaps there are limits to "reform by stealth". Mr Jenkins has argued that providing a "meta goal or a meta idea" can be an important aspect of governance, but "in India, politicians have relied far less on this positive form of vision-creation than they have on ritual intonation of developmental shibboleths to conceal reforms' radical implications and thereby reassure those groups who may be threatened by them". Prime Minister Narendra Modi has declared that reforms should be large-scale, deep-rooted and not undertaken by stealth. With the advent of the Indian middle class and politics of aspiration, we have to wait and watch whether and how far the reforms are deepened.

understanding various term in question paper

Analyse
 Break an issue into its constituent parts. Look in depth at each part using supporting arguments
and evidence for and against as well as how these interrelate to one another.
Assess
 Weigh up to what extent something is true. Persuade the reader of your argument by citing
relevant research but also remember to point out any flaws and counter-arguments as well.
Conclude by stating clearly how far you are in agreement with the original proposition.
Clarify
 Literally make something clearer and, where appropriate, simplify it. This could involve, for
example, explaining in simpler terms a complex process or theory, or the relationship between
two variables.
Comment upon
Pick out the main points on a subject and give your opinion, reinforcing your point of view using
logic and reference to relevant evidence, including any wider reading you have done.
Compare
 Identify the similarities and differences between two or more phenomena. Say if any of the
shared similarities or differences are more important than others. ‘Compare’ and ‘contrast’ will
often feature together in an essay question.
Consider
 Say what you think and have observed about something. Back up your comments using
appropriate evidence from external sources, or your own experience. Include any views which
are contrary to your own and how they relate to what you originally thought.
Contrast
Similar to compare but concentrate on the dissimilarities between two or more phenomena, or
what sets them apart. Point out any differences which are particularly significant.

Critically evaluate
Give your verdict as to what extent a statement or findings within a piece of research are true,
or to what extent you agree with them. Provide evidence taken from a wide range of sources
which both agree with and contradict an argument. Come to a final conclusion, basing your
decision on what you judge to be the most important factors and justify how you have made
your choice.
Define
To give in precise terms the meaning of something. Bring to attention any problems posed with
the definition and different interpretations that may exist.
Demonstrate
Show how, with examples to illustrate.
Describe
Provide a detailed explanation as to how and why something happens.
Discuss
 Essentially this is a written debate where you are using your skill at reasoning, backed up by
carefully selected evidence to make a case for and against an argument, or point out the
advantages and disadvantages of a given context. Remember to arrive at a conclusion.
Elaborate
To give in more detail, provide more information on.

Evaluate See the explanation for ‘critically evaluate’.
Examine
 Look in close detail and establish the key facts and important issues surrounding a topic. This
should be a critical evaluation and you should try and offer reasons as to why the facts and
issues you have identified are the most important, as well as explain the different ways they
could be construed.
Explain
Clarify a topic by giving a detailed account as to how and why it occurs, or what is meant by the
use of this term in a particular context. Your writing should have clarity so that complex
procedures or sequences of events can be understood, defining key terms where appropriate,
and be substantiated with relevant research.
Explore
 Adopt a questioning approach and consider a variety of different viewpoints. Where possible
reconcile opposing views by presenting a final line of argument.
Give anaccount of
Means give a detailed description of something. Not to be confused with ‘account for’ which
asks you not only what, but why something happened.
Identify
Determine what are the key points to be addressed and implications thereof.
Illustrate
A similar instruction to ‘explain’ whereby you are asked to show the workings of something,
making use of definite examples and statistics if appropriate to add weight to your explanation.
Interpret
Demonstrate your understanding of an issue or topic. This can be the use of particular
terminology by an author, or what the findings from a piece of research suggest to you. In the
latter instance, comment on any significant patterns and causal relationships.
Justify
Make a case by providing a body of evidence to support your ideas and points of view. In order
to present a balanced argument, consider opinions which may run contrary to your own before
stating your conclusion.
Outline
 Convey the main points placing emphasis on global structures and interrelationships rather
than minute detail.
Review
Look thoroughly into a subject. This should be a critical assessment and not merely descriptive.
Show how Present, in a logical order, and with reference to relevant evidence the stages and combinationof factors that give rise to something.
State To specify in clear terms the key aspects pertaining to a topic without being overly descriptive.
Refer to evidence and examples where appropriate.
Summarise Give a condensed version drawing out the main facts and omit superfluous information. Brief orgeneral examples will normally suffice for this kind of answer
To whatextent
Evokes a similar response to questions containing 'How far...'. This type of question calls for a
thorough assessment of the evidence in presenting your argument. Explore alternative
explanations where they exist

The right way to make in India

RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan’s advice that the country must “make for India” than merely “make in India” is perceptive and with many policy implications. The potential of the 1.25 billion-strong Indian population, with the highest (and growing) proportion of people below 35, is tempting to the rest of the world. Given the receptiveness of the people to innovation and new technologies, India is tempting as a production-centre where labour costs are low and capability is high.

The other message that Rajan is giving us is that we must not tie ourselves to export-markets as the South East Asian nations and China did for many years. He is not saying that we should ignore world markets. We must export to the maximum. However, the message warns us of the deterioration in major economies. Remember that this is the man who warned the world three years in advance about the collapse of financial markets that occurred in 2008. We must take his prescience seriously.

What is happening to most of the developed economies? The long-term growth of Japan, Europe, even China, will be hindered by rapidly-ageing populations. This will contract their effective labour force and also domestic markets. The US escapes this fate because of immigration.

The current economic situation in the developed countries, except the US, is getting grim. The US expects 3% growth, sharply falling unemployment, revival in consumer confidence and retail purchases. Interest rates, at around zero now, need to rise and the Federal Reserve is making noises that they will. The economic revival in the US is fuelled to a great extent by the boom in production of oil and gas from shale. It has also led to a collapse in world oil prices, benefiting oil-short emerging economies like India. Despite efforts by Saudi Arabia to make the high-cost shale oil production uneconomic, and thus reduce domestic production in the US and increase crude imports, there appears little chance of this happening. The chances are that world crude oil prices will remain low for two more years.

Other developed economies are not in the same position. Germany, by phasing out nuclear power generation, and its rigid labour markets is becoming (as The Economist says), ‘the sick man of Europe’. Germany has been the economic engine for Europe. Its decline will hurt all Eurpoean Union countries. Spain and Greece are yet to recover after years of belt tightening and decline. The decline in the European economies will be accelerated by the decline in Germany. France is beset by the problems caused by a socialist government that is reluctant to demand more effort from its labour. Macroeconomic management in European countries appears to have been neglected in recent times. Japan appeared to be emerging under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s leadership from years of economic stagnation and deflation. However, that appears to have been stalled by a premature rise (long overdue) in consumption taxes. China is showing signs of a slowdown. Its overall fiscal situation is suspect because of the deficits of provinces and local authorities. Declining world commodity prices are also a result of falling Chinese demand.

Russia is in serious trouble, with a collapsing rouble, declining growth, rampant inflation and large increases in interest rates. It has not diversified its economy and continues to be heavily dependent on its crude oil and gas production. The collapse in world crude prices, therefore, has hurt Russia very badly. The economic sanctions of the West on Russia, too, have hurt it badly and there is no sign of their being eased.

Russia is unlikely to recover soon and may initiate warlike adventures to divert peoples’ attention from their plight. India has to wonder if it is safe to advance large sums to Russia for defence equipment and new nuclear plants. The situation in other two BRICS economies, Brazil and South Africa, is hardly better. African economies, too, are also struggling.

For India, collapsing crude oil prices have immensely benefited the NDA government. Consumer purchases are rising, inflation figures are dropping, and lower crude prices will help the balance of payments. It would be wise now for the government to retain the present consumer prices for petro products and use the resulting surplus in the Budget for urgent capital expenditures. Secondly, India cannot depend on any sharp rise in exports, especially since we are so dependent on minerals (iron ore) that will not be in as much demand, with the world economies battling declines. Exports of agricultural products might do well if the weather gods are kind and government minimum price support price policies are more flexible. Third, foreign direct investment might rise as India could be a beacon in an otherwise depressed global economic environment. Fourth, we must be much more cautious in large dealings with Russia, which has, in the past years, unceremoniously raised prices sharply, in the middle of working on contract (for example, the aircraft carrier Gorchakov).

Fifth, we must tackle energy supplies and costs. The law on unlimited liability of nuclear equipment plant suppliers, in the case of accidents, must be modified to limit the liability. Other countries like Japan, the US, and South Korea, could then supply their nuclear technology, and help reduce our dependence on coal. Construction of the new hydro plants in Nepal agreed recently must move apace. We must improve the technology in coal mining so that productivity and production can rise. This will require ultimate denationalisation of Coal India.

The Indian market is huge and can grow rapidly. Yet, manufacturing in India is less than a fourth of the GDP. This must rise. This will also help to increase jobs in organised manufacturing (presently around 6% of total employment). Manufacturing jobs are mostly urban. These new jobs will meet the expected surge in migration to urban from rural areas. We must become less dependent on imports of what we can make in India.

These include defence equipment, silicon chips, and solar panels, to name some large imports. The cap of 49% on foreign direct investment must be raised. Investors must feel that they have control, even though it is illusory. Once the factory is established in India and there are Indian employees, the desired technology transfer is automatic. What else does India need? Imports will decline and we will learn the technology. Coal imports can fall if we move with vigour to change our energy policies as described. Commercial operations of mines, ultimate denationalisation can also sharply reduce the imports of coal. An early introduction of the goods and services tax will stimulate all domestic purchases.

The RBI Governor has encapsulated in Make for India a whole range of economic policies, some of which have been discussed here. The government must now move quickly to make the difference.

Why India needs a conservation act

India should reject its protection philosophy, embrace conservation and bridge gaps between people and officials

I have just returned from an extended tour of our jungles where, as usual, much is being spoken; little is being done to conserve our wilderness. While camping near the Corbett National Park, our cook, also the village leader, was called in every night to help with the elephant menace in his hamlet. He narrated numerous stories of tigers killing humans. Most kills were recent. The so-called man-animal conflict was at its worst and even the forests where I work in southern India we were seeing a spate of escalating conflicts between local people and officials. This got me thinking. Was something seriously amiss with our wilderness policies? On further thought, the answer dawned on me. India does not have its own standalone conservation act. We have the Wildlife (Protection) Act of 1972; why did we choose not to have the Wildlife (Conservation) Act of 1972 instead?

The first thing that comes to mind is that in conservation one needs to be in constant dialogue with all the players, and certainly our forest officials want no such thing. Dialogue makes one answerable, vulnerable and transparent, actions alien if not loathsome to officials.

Conservation is solely achieved through building trust and respect with all parties concerned. Though transparent dialogue is a crucial part of that trust-building process, the people living near our protected forests are not in dialogue with the officials. This has led to a severe conflict.

‘Protection’ has a very minor but essential part in effective ‘Conservation’. ‘Conservation’ comes first, followed by ‘Protection’. Wherever conservation fails, protection is supposed to kick in. That’s the way it is the world over, except India. When the African countries can have their own conservation laws, why in heavens name doesn’t India have one which stands on its own two feet? Instead of a Wildlife Conservation Act, we have a National Tiger Conservation Authority tucked away, hidden deep in the recess of the Wildlife (Protection) Act of 1972. But it has only a handful of pages that make a veiled attempt to address the term ‘conservation’.

India is regarded as one of the most corrupt countries. Add to this the fact that our parks and sanctuaries have extensive boundaries, which, in most places remain porous. We have large sensitive forested regions of great value that cannot be effectively patrolled or protected. We have neither the funds nor the political will or the manpower to protect these expansive areas. These areas need to be conserved.

Further, protection is an exclusionary form of management that pushes people away. After more than six decades of Independence, it’s clear that we need to embrace the people living around our protected forests and convert them from being a liability to an asset. Only conservation can do that, not protection. Since 1947, officials and locals have drifted apart at an alarming rate and today a chasm exists between them. This has led to severe conflict. There being no effective dialogue between them, locals in general believe officials to be corrupt and officials on their part think most locals to be smugglers and poachers. This further escalates the conflict.

The officials have lived in denial of such conflicts and over time, instead of calling such a conflict the local man-authority conflict, have evolved a unique term for their failures and called it the man-animal conflict. How could they be answerable for the actions of animals, they would ask whenever the need arose.

It is clear that unless India rejects its protection philosophy and embraces conservation and bridges this gap between people living on the fringes of its forests and the officials and converts these people into assets by including them in the management of her sensitive regions, we can kiss our wilderness goodbye.

We have arrived at this alarming situation because it takes 10 to 15 years, if not a couple of generations, to start the dialogue process leading to effective conservation. Our officers hold their posts for but a couple of years, and fail to share the larger vision. Also because the process of dialogue and trust-building that feeds conservation at most times remains intangible, most funding towards wildlife management gets funnelled into protection. Efforts in any protection activity are tangible and can be measured for the disbursement of funds — examples are anti-poaching camps, vehicles, arms, fences, trenches, roads, fire lines, staff quarters and so on.

Conservation acts suffer because they cannot be measured thus. Conservation can best be described as the ‘human’s ethical pursuit of letting things be in nature’. This natural balance is difficult to maintain as man interferes with nature without truly understanding the consequences. Sadly, whenever man plays god he destroys without having the power to recreate. The writing is on the wall. Forest officials must stop hiding behind the so-called man-animal conflict and the Wildlife (Protection) Act of 1972. If we are to conserve our wilderness, we need a hard-hitting yet sensitive conservation act that also addresses, as an integral part of conservation, the local people-authority conflict upfront.

No end to battle over land

When the National Democratic Alliance government amended the land acquisition Act through an ordinance last week, it promised to set farmers and industry on an amiable path to mutual benefits and development.

Land acquisition under the 1894 Act had been marked by violent protests, even police firings at farmers. The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (LARR) Act, 2013, is the first law on acquiring land post-Independence. Does this ordinance amending the law before it was even fully implemented make the acquisition of land more transparent and fair?

Non-transparent resource allocation

The LARR Act was passed unanimously by all political parties last September. Commenting on the changes back then, Vinayak Chatterjee, Chairman, Confederation of Indian Industry’s National Task Force on Infrastructure, said: “The term ‘public purpose’ has now been clearly defined. The misuse of this clause under ‘eminent domain’ was the bane of the earlier legislation. It led to forcible, heartless acquisition programmes as well as ‘lazy acquisitions where acquired land was hugely in excess of needs or just left unutilised.’”

After the ordinance was passed last week, Mr. Chatterjee maintained, “All I can say is I am positive about the ordinance as it includes public-private partnership for social infrastructure in the exempt category.”

Among the main changes, the ordinance exempts special categories of projects from the requirements of social impact assessment (SIA) and obtaining consent of affected families mandated by the LARR Act. It dilutes the time limit of five years put on projects, after which if land remained utilised, it would go back to the landowner. Instead, the period of five years has been substituted by unspecified period. Another dilution is of the “retrospective clause” to exclude time spent under litigation in cases where a stay order has been passed.

CAG Report revelations

A month before the ordinance was cleared, a Comptroller and Auditor-General (CAG) report on special economic zones (SEZs) was tabled in Parliament. It found that of the 45,635 hectares of land notified for the development of SEZs, no operations had taken place in 38 per cent of the notified land even after several years of acquisition. It criticised developers, including Reliance, DLF and Essar, for acquiring land but using only “a fraction of it.”

“Many tracts of lands were acquired invoking the ‘public purpose’ clause,” it noted. For instance, the CAG found that the Mukesh Ambani-promoted SEZ in Navi Mumbai had got over 1,250 hectares of land at Dronagiri in Maharashtra in 2006 for a multi-product SEZ. But no industrial unit had been built on the land till now. The CAG found that several industrial houses had raised loans of Rs. 6,309.53 crore mortgaging leasehold government land.

The SEZs, along with private health and educational institutions, are in the broad category of public-private social infrastructure projects now exempted from the SIA’s scrutiny and consent clause under the ordinance. “By giving up the consent clause, you are opening the door for forcible land acquisition which is not acceptable and should not happen under any circumstances. By giving up SIA, you are opening the door for diversion of land,” said Jairam Ramesh, under whose tenure as Union Rural Development Minister the LARR Act was passed in 2013.

While industry bodies such as the CII have welcomed the ordinance, describing it as a sign of the government’s “serious commitment to economic reforms,” farmers’ unions have announced protests when Parliament meets for the Budget Session. “Hundreds of farmers were martyred protesting unfair acquisition. The Modi government has done this to hand over land to acquire land and hand it over to builders and industry,” said B.S. Rajwal, president, Bharat Kisan Union.

Environmentalists, too, have questioned the dilutions in favour of developers. “The government wants to empower companies to acquire land and do nothing with it. The ordinance says five years, or a specified time period whichever is later, but it does not say who will specify this time period, can it be changed or extended,” pointed out Shankar Gopalakrishnan of Campaign for Survival and Dignity.

Intensifying conflicts

A study released by a U.S.-based think-tank, Rights and Resources Initiative and Society for Promotion of Wastelands Development, studied Supreme Court and High Court judgments from the past 10 years, and newspaper reports on land disputes and found that land conflicts affect one-fourth of India’s 610 districts. In instances such as the ongoing struggle over POSCO land in Odisha, the Bengaluru-based Alternative Law Forum found that between 2006 and 2012, 230 cases were filed against over 2,000 villagers resisting POSCO.

Several of the conflicts have resulted from takeover of agricultural and irrigated land. But the ordinance dilutes the provision in the 2013 to acquire multi-crop, irrigated land only as a last resort but exempting special categories.

“Even if the company offers Rs. 50 lakh, we will not give up agricultural land,” said Deepak Das (35), who leads the North Karanpura Bachao Samiti in Hazaribagh in Jharkhand and is an accused in four cases related to land acquisition protests. The samiti comprises over 10,000 families at 23 villages in Hazaribagh opposing a NTPC project to mine coal here since 2005.

The land ordinance does little to check the real bottlenecks posed by cronyism, lack of accountability or arbitrariness in the decision-making processes. A “reform” such as this may fail to check social conflict with little improvement in vital infrastructure.