Landing It Rich
Be it Trump, Indian bureaucrats, or ministers, using privileged information for private gain is unethical, even if legal
Trump bought shares of a major computer maker in Feb. In May, his govt gave the company a $10bn defence contract, making its share price jump. Within weeks, Trump’s stake had more than doubled in value. Would you consider his investment aboveboard? While it might be defensible legally, does it pass on ethics? That’s also the question at the heart of the Ujjain controversy, involving MP’s CM Mohan Yadav, his family, and their real estate firms.
It’s been alleged that they bought 137 plots – a total area of 168 acres – in locations that were later marked for infra projects. This change of land use raised property value sharply, in what might be called a windfall for the new owners. Legal? Perhaps. But ethical? Be it business, politics or sport, the rules of fair play have no room for ‘insider trading’ – exploiting privileged information for gain. In horse racing, for example, if the crowd favourite is lame, and its owner and trainer put their money on the second-best horse, is it a game of chance anymore?
When it comes to land for urbanisation, the scope for price rigging is immense, because price is seldom a function of the land’s own attributes. It varies with where you drop a highway, or a business park, or a university. Just last month, a newspaper exposed another possible case of bureaucratic connivance in MP. It found that 50-odd people, including IAS and IPS officers from Delhi, Haryana, Telangana, Maharashtra, etc, bought land in Guradi Ghat village, on the same day in 2022. Sixteen months later, govt approved a highway 500m away from this site, and then the purpose of the land was changed from agricultural to residential. The value of the land rose from ₹81.7/sq ft to ₹557/sq ft within two years, and is now said to be close to ₹3,000/sq ft.
Such cases happen in every state that’s urbanising rapidly, and politicians and bureaucrats – because they are the planners and decision-makers – have all the inside information to buy the most lucrative plots cheaply, before plans are published. If all land were equal, they would have no incentive to do so, but as we said, it’s their decisions – where schools, parks, markets, airports and garbage dumps will be placed – that create a premium. Conflict of interest is obvious. Such actions are indefensible ethically.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-plus/politics/how-netas-move-land/articleshow/114915636.cms
Disclaimer
Views expressed above are the author’s own.
