Government must help in land acquisition: Nobel winner Stiglitz

Renowned economist and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz said on Wednesday that the government should not adopt a hands-off approach in acquiring land for industry, and should in fact actively intervene to procure the land.

This is contrary to what most of the liberal Indian economists believe – that land acquisition and its price should be left to the buyer and seller, with the government at best playing the role of a mediator.

Speaking at an Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) seminar in Kolkata, Stiglitz said the state should play a role in acquiring large pieces of land for setting up industry. His remarks were particularly in the context of West Bengal, where a Tata Motors project had to be abandoned midway over land acquisition problems.

''I talked to some people and they said it's (land acquisition) a problem here,'' said Stiglitz, formerly chief economist with the World Bank and now a professor at Columbia University, during an interaction with journalists after the seminar.

The economist felt the model of direct purchase of land for industry, which state chief minister Mamata Banerjee advocates, might not work in case of fragmented ownership. "The West Bengal government's model for direct purchase of land by industry houses setting up big units will probably not work," Stiglitz said.

"They (industry) will want to assemble large pieces of land while there are fragmented ownerships. In case of multiple owners, one person can hold on to a piece of land and ask for a lot more for that piece. That will make purchase difficult," Stiglitz said.