Gati Shakti and Revision of Railway’s Land Leasing Policy
In the last budget, a major portion of Railways’ allocation of Rs.1,40,367.13 crores was allocated for PM's Gati Shakti Master Plan announced on 75th year of Independence. Modi government has been on a spree to launch different such projects to pave the way for privatisation and for the selling of national assets.
Railways Land under 'Gati Shakti Plan' and Tall Talks of Job Creation
According to the government, 'Gati Shakti Plan' has been designed to upgrade the country's infrastructure of Railways, Roads, Airports, Ports, Public Transport, Waterways and logistics for multimodal connectivity. Modi describes these infrastructures as seven engines of economic growth and development. The cabinet announced that the project will create 1.25 lakh jobs just like Modi himself promised 2 crores jobs per year before coming to power. In reality, the aforesaid project can hardly create a few thousand informal jobs as the companies undertaking the construction of 300 cargo terminals will get things done by labour contractors. The staff already on the company's roll will carry out the day-to-day job after commissioning of the cargo terminals, throwing the 1400 Regular employees of Container Corporation of India (henceforth CONCOR) to an uncertain future.
Eviction of the Marginalised Poor from the Railway Land
Through the Gati Shakti Plan, the government has designed commercial use of the land on either side of the Railway track originally purchased by CONCOR from the peasants at a cheaper rate. This tract of land is inhabited by the poor working population doing intensive manual jobs like hawking, station coolie, daily labour, rickshaw pulling and other such jobs. As many as 44 lakhs such people living on either side of the track, are likely to be evicted from 100 lakh acres land that is said to be vacant on records of Indian Railways. This scheme will hand over 15 lakh hectares of land to the corporate capital in exchange for a paltry land leasing fee.
Revised Land License (leasing) Fees & Its Modus Operandi
Modi Govt. has taken a cabinet decision to lower the leasing rates to boost up commercial activities along the Railway tracks in the interest of crony capital. With this aim, the PMO advised the cabinet committee on economic affairs to revise the long-term lease policies for the industrial use of Railway land. Accordingly, the rate of land licensing fees has been reduced from 6% to 1.5% of the market value of land. It has also been decided to provide land on a nominal fee of Re1/ per sq meter per year to set up private schools and Hospitals on PPP model. The lease period has been extended to 35 years from the existing 05 Years.
The Hidden Agenda
The land leasing policy has been liberalised to hasten the strategic disinvestment of Railway PSU-CONCOR. CONCOR has been described as a Navratna company for its consistent profit earnings and with its functional 26 Cargo terminals on Railway land serving the Nation and pushing up Railway freight earnings. But the Modi govt. is determined to undermine the company's performance to pave the way for privatisation. To make CONCOR unviable, the company has been forced to pay increased rental fees of Rs. 590 crores for FY-21 compared to Rs. 120 crores in FY-20.
Such retrograde steps are like killing the goose that lays golden eggs. The anti -people fascist economic Policy of buiding citadel of corporate capital on the ruins of national assets & PSUs spells economic disaster as well as weakens the foundation of liberal democratic State.
In addition to the loss of permanent jobs in CONCOR, approximately 10 lakh jobs of contract labour related to ICDs (Inland Container Depots) and logistics service are sure to be at stake. On the other hand, the mechanised cargo handling can produce a few thousand casual jobs at 300 Gatishakti Cargo Terminals proposed to be built.
The Gatishakti plan, thus is another blatant example of Modi Government’s tactics of turning truth to its head through rhetoric. This plan is designed to kill lakhs of jobs, displace many more from railway land without any compensation or rehabilitation, only to satisfy the ever increasing greed of few crony corporates.