Godrej Opposes Land Acquisition for the Bullet Train

Modi government’s ambitious bullet train project has faced opposition yet again, and this time not from the poor farmers, but from the multinational Indian conglomerate Godrej. The Godrej Group has moved the Bombay High Court, challenging the proposed acquisition of its prime property in suburban Vikhroli for the bullet train project.

The company has raised the demand in front of the concerned authorities to change the alignment of the project so that it can get the 8.6 acres of land belonging to Godrej Construction out of the plan. The petition, filed in June, is expected to be heard by a single judge bench of the high court on July 31.

A total 508.17 km of rail track is to be laid between Mumbai and Ahmedabad; about 21 km is planned to be underground, as per the current alignment of the bullet train project. One of the entry points to the underground tunnel falls on the land in Vikhroli. 

The Godrej Group’s Vikhroli property is worth more than Rs 5 billion, according to a report in the Business Standard. If Godrej does not agree to the acquisition, the authorities will have to either change the track alignment or forcibly acquire the land using the provisions of the Maharashtra Land Acquisition Act of 2013, says the report.

The joint India-Japan bullet train project requires nearly 1,400 hectares of land in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Dadra and Nagar Haveli. The total cost of the project is estimated to be Rs 1.08 lakh crore, of which, Rs 88,000 crore will be a soft loan from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

In May, the bullet train project had faced opposition from thousands of Adivasi farmers in Maharashtra. The project saw participation from the farmers of Raigad, Thane, Nashik, Vidarbha, Konkan, Palghar, Dhule, Jalgaon, Dahanu, Gadchiroli and Nandurbar. The farmers had demanded that the government must repeal a notification issued by the Maharashtra governor in November 2017, which diluted the role of gram sabhas in infrastructure projects. Farmers in Dahanu taluka, Palgar district stopped the officials from conducting a survey of the land they did not want to get displaced from, for the second time. The locals were already victims of a dam project, as they had been displaced to two villages in Dahanu.

In April, farmers in Gujarat in Vadodara had protested against the project at a “stakeholder consultation meet” held by the National High Speed Rail Corporation (NHSRC). They had opposed the high-handedness of the NHSRC while dealing with the farmers affected by the land acquisition. In Maharashtra’s Thane and Palgar districts, farmers argued that the NHSRC officials were conducting surveys of their land without considering their consent, despite the fact that the regional gram sabhas had unanimously refused to give away land for the project.

The construction for India’s first bullet train project was to begin in January 2019 and the deadline for land acquisition is the end of this year. The project’s completion is aimed by 2022.

A retired Indian Engineering Service (IES) officer, E Sreedharan, who had served as the managing director of Delhi Metro from 1995 to 2012, said in an interview with the media, "Bullet trains will cater only to the elite community. It is highly expensive and beyond the reach of ordinary people. What India needs is a modern, clean, safe and fast rail system."

However, certain elites themselves are not happy with the project as their own land is at stake. It would be interesting to see if the Godrej group would be able to reach a compromise with the Modi government. As poor farmers are under threat of being dispossessed and relocated without any rehabilitation, will the Modi government realign the project under ‘pressure’ from a wealthy company? It is too early to comment on this now, however, the track record of the central government suggests that it is likely the victory will be for the elite, yet again.