The Indian state is empowered to acquire land on behalf of private companies by virtue of ‘eminent domain’ outlined in the Land Acquisition Act 1894. Several amendments to the 1894 Land Acquisition Act have broadened the purview of the ‘public purpose’ clause and have facilitated more state intervention in land acquisition on behalf of private capital. Rather than questioning the legitimacy of the prevailing practice of state intervention to resolve the glitches of access to land by private corporations, the New Act of 2013 has expanded the ambit of ‘public purpose’ to include public‐private‐partnership projects. This paper seeks to look into the political economy of why the neoliberal state must continue to acquire land on behalf of the capitalists in the liberalized economy. This paper also attempts to bring out the implications of divergent livelihood outcome under state acquisition and direct corporate land purchase for the land acquisition framework in India through the case study of Rajarhat New Town in West Bengal.

中文翻译：

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土地征用法律中的公私矛盾：印度拉贾尔哈特的见解

根据1894年《土地收购法》中概述的“优先领域”，印度政府有权代表私人公司收购土地。1894年《土地收购法》的几项修正扩大了“公共目的”条款的范围，并为国家代表私人资本介入土地收购。2013年的《新法案》没有质疑解决私人公司获取土地故障的现行国家干预行为的合法性，而是将“公共目的”的范围扩大到包括公共-私人伙伴关系项目。本文试图探讨为什么新自由主义国家必须继续代表自由化经济中的资本家获得土地的政治经济学。