Not At Full Speed

The overwhelming state power notwithstanding, farmers whose lands are being acquired for the Modi government’s dream project have no plans to give up the fight

- RK Misra

FOUNDATION stones laid by Prime Minister Narendra Mo di litter India’s cities, towns and villages but there are few projects which he has pursued with such perseverance and tenacity as the Ahmedabad-Mumbai bullet train one. The project, estimated to cost ₹1.10 lakh crore, is being built with the assistance of ₹88,087 crores from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) through a 50-year loan at an interest rate of 0.1 percent. The remaining cost is being borne by the Gujarat and Maharashtra governments.

The foundation stone of the project was formally laid in Ahmedabad on September 14, 2017, in the presence of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Originally, the first train was to run by March 2023 but for reasons unstated, the prime minister has advanced the date to 2022 to coincide with 75 years of Independence.

Many would say that the target set is impossible to achieve. The assumption is not due to technical reasons. The project has been mired in legal tangles almost from day one. It may have got a shot in the arm when the Gujarat High Court last month ruled against farmers challenging the land acquisition process and demanding higher compensation, but the verdict has only set the stage for a final slugfest in the Supreme Court.

The Court on September 19 dismissed the pleas of over 120 farmers and upheld the validity of the Land Acquisition Act that was amended by the Gujarat government in 2016. “We are of the considered opinion that the challenge to validity of Section 10A read with Section 2(1) of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement [Gujarat Amendment] Act, 2016 cannot be accepted and held to be unconstitutional or illegal,” the Court said. The farmers had challenged the state amendment that had altered the central law of 2013.