India Should Promise Investors Profits, Not Land
The practice of luring companies with huge tracts of agricultural holdings has to end.
India should lure investors with profits, not land.
Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/BloombergWhen India’s IT hub of Bengaluru was in its infancy, tech companies would fight over more than just talent — they were competing for land. A decade ago, giants like Infosys Ltd. owned more property than the country’s biggest real estate firms. Amazon.com Inc.’s largest office globally is in Bengaluru’s rival Hyderabad, spread over 10 acres granted by an eager state government.
That practice is coming to an end. Priyank Kharge, the IT minister who oversees Bengaluru, said recently that the state of Karnataka would no longer “give away land for cheap” to possible investors. The change is long overdue, and other states should follow suit. Governments using their control of land as a lure for investment was always politically fraught, and has now become unsustainable.