By IANS,
Chennai : A land corporation – in the public-private partnership mode – should be set up to acquire land and develop it for industrial use, a head of the working group on land and water resources for the 12th Five Year Plan has said.
Speaking to reporters here Monday, B. Muthuraman, who is also president of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), said: “There is consensus amongst the members of the working group on floating a Land Corporation which would acquire land and develop it for industries. The Land Corporation could be a public-private partnership initiative.”
He was here in connection with CII’s National Council Meeting slated for Tuesday.
Muthuraman said that on the issue of water, norms for optimum consumption of water will be laid for each industry.
“Only three percent of the land in India is occupied by industries and only eight percent of the water is used by industries whereas 70 percent of water is used in agricultural activities,” he said.
According to him, land records have to be digitised first and zoning to be done.
“Once zoning is done, industries could locate their factories there,” he said.
On the issue of industries acquiring land directly from the owners instead of the government acquiring it and later handing over to private corporations, Muthuraman said: “Corporates can acquire only small tracts of land. It is only the government that can acquire large tracts of land.”
He said there should be a mechanism to ensure that the land owners do participate in the share of growth over a period of time.
“The land owners should not only get the market price of the land but also be able to participate in the appreciation over a period of time,” Muthuraman added. According to him, the CII is also of the view that Land Corporation is the way forward for acquiring land for industrial use.
Expressing concern at Reserve Bank of India (RBI) hiking interest rates, he said: “The cost of capital for industries is going up as well as the cost of inputs.”
Stating that economic growth is showing signs of slowing down, he said the gross capital formation and foreign direct investment (FDI) has gone down this year.
“Credit to agriculture has decelerated which means farmers are not taking loans. This is not a good sign,” he said.
According to him, an 8 percent growth of gross domestic product (GDP) is not right for India as it needs to grow by at least 9 or 10 percent for several years to provide jobs for people.
“The answer is to increase agricultural productivity, attract investments, improve infrastructure and speed up reforms,” Muthuraman said.
According to him, the implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST) could contribute around one percent growth in GDP.
He said inflation cannot be controlled by monetary policies alone.