Geo436.com blog: Land bill tops agenda in India parliament session

Geo436 NEW DELHI: India”s government will try to push key reforms, including those to ease land acquisition for industry and mines, when parliament opens on Tuesday, but opposition protests over corruption could delay matters.

The proposed laws to give farmers better prices for land taken over for factories or roads and to share mining profits with locals are seen as damping protests that have held up several billion-dollar investments key to accelerating growth.

But ratification of the bills may be delayed by opposition attacks over charges ministers and people close to the Congress party-led coalition government siphoned off millions of dollars during last month”s Commonwealth Games and over lucrative telecoms licences awarded to firms at rock-bottom prices.

Asia”s third-largest economy needs to quicken up its industrialisation and build better infrastructure if it has to catch up with rival China”s double-digit growth rates and pull out several hundred millions of its citizens out of poverty.

But rows over land acquisition have held up a series of projects ranging from a $2-billion highway in north India to South Korean Posco”s $12-billion steel mill in eastern Orissa state.

The expected parliament impasse is emblematic of what analysts have come to accept about India: that reforms will be slow and convoluted in the raucous coalition politics of India, despite broad political acceptance.

The main opposition Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), smarting from recent investigations into the role of its affiliate groups in bomb attacks against Muslims, will use these issues to keep pressure on the government.

“It is going to be a very intense session, a confrontation of the failures of the government in tackling corruption allegations,” BJP leader Nirmala Sitharaman said.

“The line is clearly drawn: the failure to take action is not a question of scandal, it”s a case of you very clearly being paralytic about action.”

The land bill was a promise extracted from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh by Rahul Gandhi, the son of powerful Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and who is seen as a prime minister in waiting. Rahul has also backed the rights of people affected by mining projects.

The laws are seen boosting Congress” image at a time of state elections over the coming year and taking the edge off voter anger over high food prices and inflation.

Singh”s government has had to face several stormy parliament sessions over issues like high prices since it was reelected with a stronger mandate in early 2009, and the disruptions have held up many important reform bills.

The new session to Dec. 13 begins a day after US President Barack Obama addresses lawmakers, part of a three-day visit where he has pushed for more exports and for greater market access.

“The government is prepared to discuss each and every issue. We don”t want any disruption of the parliament,” Congress leader Manish Tewari told Reuters.

BJP leaders said Congress had not yet approached it for back-room negotiations that had salvaged the previous session of parliament and allowed the passage of a landmark civil nuclear liability law with bipartisan support.