Skip to main content

Rich farmers of Mandal-Becharaji area "regret" taking part in agitation against special investment region

Rich farmers "opposing" SIR
By Rajiv Shah
The Gujarat government may have gone on the back foot by excluding 36 of the 44 villages from its proposed special investment region (SIR) in the Mandal -Becharaji area of North Gujarat, but now there is enough reason for it to "cheer". Sharp rise in the land prices in the eight villages that will now be included in the newly-formed SIR – Bhagapura and Shihor of Detroj taluka, Hansalpur-Becharaji, Sitapur, Udhroj, Udhrojpura and Ukardi of Mandal taluka, Chandanki village of Becharaji taluka – is leading to a situation where a section of the rich landowners of rest of the 36 villages are said to be regretting why they protested against SIR.
Informed sources close to the development say, land prices in the eight villages have gone up so high that they are “double those that exist next to the Tata Motors’ Nano plant in Sanand area in Ahmedabad district.” They add, “The highest land price around the Nano plant is Rs 1.5 crore per bigha, while those next to the proposed Maruti-Suzuki plant, which is central to the SIR, have peaked Rs 3 crore per bigha. A section of the influential persons who participated in the agitation against the SIR under the Jameen Adhikar Andolan Gujarat (JAAG) never expected this to happen.”
In fact, if these sources are to be believed, some of the well-off landowners of the 36 villages have told JAAG leaders that they regret the day when they joined the agitation, which continued for about a year. “It seems clear that these landowners participated in the agitation only to raise the price of the land, and not against the SIR. While today the landowners of the eight villagers are rejoicing, their counterparts feel let down. In fact, some of them have informally told JAAG leaders whether it would be possible to reverse the decision of opposing the Becharaji-Mandal SIR”, the source said.
The suspicion is that, a few of the politically influential landowners may have approached the Gujarat government requesting for reversal of the decision to exclude 36 villages from the SIR. “Already, JAAG is failing to mobilize farmers of the Becharaji-Mandal area in favour of its main demand – to pressure the Gujarat government to abrogate the SIR Act itself, which puts the entire SIR region under a notified authority. Under the Act, this notified authority is more powerful than any local self-governing authority all issues of overall development, including land acquisition”, the sources pointed out.
Latest developments around the proposed Maruti-Suzuki plant suggest that the Gujarat government is doing all it can to raise the value of the Becharaji-Mandal area. Already, the Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) is going ahead with its plans of setting up three industrial estates in the area by acquiring around 1,000 hectares of land in villages including Vithalpur and Bhagapura in Mandal and Detroj talukas. Sources said that the process of land acquisition has already started and is progressing gradually.
This is happening at a time when the land prices in Sanand are softening for the first time after a continuous appreciation since 2008 when Tata Motors set up the Nano plant in the Ahmedabad neighbourhood. Sanand land prices had shot up more than 300 per cent in three years. This led to a situation where farmers could command whatever price. The situation reached the extent where there were no takers and farmers in need of money began selling their land at 10-20 per cent lower rates. Average price of agricultural land jumped to more than Rs 1 crore per bigha, which was around Rs 10 lakh per bigha four years ago.
Meanwhile, the Mandal-Becharaji area continued to witness increasing demand for land as real estate developers try hard to build a land bank in the region. There is a distinct view that the demand for real estate is likely to rise considerably in the coming years. Already, India’s two-wheeler giant Honda Motorcycles and Scooters India (HMSI) is being wooed to put up a project in the vicinity. HMSI is said to be planning to set up its fourth manufacturing plant in the country in Gujarat. "The company has been looking for land in the Mandal-Becharaji region," a senior state official was quoted as saying.

Comments

TRENDING

The silencing of conscience: Ideological attacks on India’s judiciary and free thought

By Sunil Kumar*  “Volunteers will pick up sticks to remove every obstacle that comes in the way of Sanatan and saints’ work.” — RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat (November 6, 2024, Chitrakoot) Eleven months later, on October 6, 2025, a man who threw a shoe inside the Supreme Court shouted, “India will not tolerate insults to Sanatan.” This incident was not an isolated act but a continuation of a pattern seen over the past decade—attacks on intellectuals, writers, activists, and journalists, sometimes in the name of institutions, sometimes by individual actors or organizations.

History, culture and literature of Fatehpur, UP, from where Maulana Hasrat Mohani hailed

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat*  Maulana Hasrat Mohani was a member of the Constituent Assembly and an extremely important leader of our freedom movement. Born in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh, Hasrat Mohani's relationship with nearby district of Fatehpur is interesting and not explored much by biographers and historians. Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri has written a book on Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Fatehpur. The book is in Urdu.  He has just come out with another important book, 'Hindi kee Pratham Rachna: Chandayan' authored by Mulla Daud Dalmai.' During my recent visit to Fatehpur town, I had an opportunity to meet Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri and recorded a conversation with him on issues of history, culture and literature of Fatehpur. Sharing this conversation here with you. Kindly click this link. --- *Human rights defender. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/vbrawat , X @freetohumanity, Skype @vbrawat

N-power plant at Mithi Virdi: CRZ nod is arbitrary, without jurisdiction

By Krishnakant* A case-appeal has been filed against the order of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) and others granting CRZ clearance for establishment of intake and outfall facility for proposed 6000 MWe Nuclear Power Plant at Mithi Virdi, District Bhavnagar, Gujarat by Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) vide order in F 11-23 /2014-IA- III dated March 3, 2015. The case-appeal in the National Green Tribunal at Western Bench at Pune is filed by Shaktisinh Gohil, Sarpanch of Jasapara; Hajabhai Dihora of Mithi Virdi; Jagrutiben Gohil of Jasapara; Krishnakant and Rohit Prajapati activist of the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has issued a notice to the MoEF&CC, Gujarat Pollution Control Board, Gujarat Coastal Zone Management Authority, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board and Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) and case is kept for hearing on August 20, 2015. Appeal No. 23 of 2015 (WZ) is filed, a...

Citizens’ group to recall Justice Chagla’s alarm as India faces ‘undeclared' Emergency

By A Representative  In a move likely to raise eyebrows among the powers-that-be, a voluntary organisation founded during the “dark days” of the Indira Gandhi -imposed Emergency has announced that it will hold a public conference in Ahmedabad to highlight what its office-bearers call today’s “undeclared Emergency.”

Celebrating 125 yr old legacy of healthcare work of missionaries

Vilas Shende, director, Mure Memorial Hospital By Moin Qazi* Central India has been one of the most fertile belts for several unique experiments undertaken by missionaries in the field of education and healthcare. The result is a network of several well-known schools, colleges and hospitals that have woven themselves into the social landscape of the region. They have also become a byword for quality and affordable services delivered to all sections of the society. These institutions are characterised by committed and compassionate staff driven by the selfless pursuit of improving the well-being of society. This is the reason why the region has nursed and nurtured so many eminent people who occupy high positions in varied fields across the country as well as beyond. One of the fruits of this legacy is a more than century old iconic hospital that nestles in the heart of Nagpur city. Named as Mure Memorial Hospital after a British warrior who lost his life in a war while defending his cou...

New RTI draft rules inspired by citizen-unfriendly, overtly bureaucratic approach

By Venkatesh Nayak* The Department of Personnel and Training , Government of India has invited comments on a new set of Draft Rules (available in English only) to implement The Right to Information Act, 2005 . The RTI Rules were last amended in 2012 after a long period of consultation with various stakeholders. The Government’s move to put the draft RTI Rules out for people’s comments and suggestions for change is a welcome continuation of the tradition of public consultation. Positive aspects of the Draft RTI Rules While 60-65% of the Draft RTI Rules repeat the content of the 2012 RTI Rules, some new aspects deserve appreciation as they clarify the manner of implementation of key provisions of the RTI Act. These are: Provisions for dealing with non-compliance of the orders and directives of the Central Information Commission (CIC) by public authorities- this was missing in the 2012 RTI Rules. Non-compliance is increasingly becoming a major problem- two of my non-compliance cases are...

World Bank arm accused of hiding crucial report on Gujarat’s Tata Mundra power project

By A Representative   The Centre for Financial Accountability (CFA) has accused the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO), the accountability arm of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), of concealing crucial evidence related to the Tata Mundra coal power project in Gujarat during the period when the case was being heard in U.S. courts. In a press statement released on October 10, 2025, CFA said that the CAO’s final monitoring report, which was completed in 2019 but released only in September 2025, revealed that IFC had failed to take remedial action for years, even as environmental and livelihood harms to local communities worsened.

Epic war against caste system is constitutional responsibility of elected government

Edited by well-known Gujarat Dalit rights leader Martin Macwan, the book, “Bhed-Bharat: An Account of Injustice and Atrocities on Dalits and Adivasis (2014-18)” (available in English and Gujarati*) is a selection of news articles on Dalits and Adivasis (2014-2018) published by Dalit Shakti Prakashan, Ahmedabad. Preface to the book, in which Macwan seeks to answer key questions on why the book is needed today: *** The thought of compiling a book on atrocities on Dalits and thus present an overall Indian picture had occurred to me a long time ago. Absence of such a comprehensive picture is a major reason for a weak social and political consciousness among Dalits as well as non-Dalits. But gradually the idea took a different form. I found that lay readers don’t understand numbers and don’t like to read well-researched articles. The best way to reach out to them was storytelling. As I started writing in Gujarati and sharing the idea of the book with my friends, it occurred to me that while...

When communities lead: The story of Puttenahalli lake restoration in Bengaluru

By Alejandra Amor, Mansee Bal Bhargava  The tropical Indian ecology pushed communities to develop the art and science of rainwater collection since antiquity. Traditionally, harvesting rainwater through ponds, lakes, and wetlands formed an integral part of a holistic water system that included rivers, canals, wells, aquifers, and springs. These decentralized systems sustained irrigation, livestock, and domestic needs in rural areas, supported by generations of community water management practices embedded in both utilitarian and ritualistic values.