Govt moves to amend Land Acquisition Bill

The government is keen on bringing changes in the new Land Acquisition Act to make it more industry friendly.

The government may also convene an all-party meet to evolve a consensus so that a Bill to amend the one-year-old law could be introduced in the ongoing session of Parliament.
Rural Development Minister Nitin Gadkari has already started informal consultations with the allies as well as some of the opposition parties.

The Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) has sent a note to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), suggesting dilution in some of the key provisions of the Act, as proposed by the revenue ministers of the state governments during their recent meeting with Gadkari.

The provisions that the MoRD is keen to dilute include the one that made it mandatory to obtain prior consent of at least 70 per cent of land owners in case of acquisitions for public-private-partnership (PPP) projects and 80 per cent in case of private projects.

In its note to the PMO, the MoRD suggested that the requirement of consent of land owners should be done away with for the PPP projects, where the governments hold ownership of the land.

If the rider cannot be struck off, the clause should be revised to make sure that land could be acquired even if 50 per cent of the owners had given consent, the MoRD argued in its note.

The Congress-led UPA government got the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill passed by both the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha during the monsoon session of Parliament last year.

It replaced the archaic Land Acquisition Act of 1894. The new law was projected as a pro-farmer legislation and triggered concerns in the industry about the delays it would cause to acquire land for any project.

Though the BJP helped pass the bill in Parliament, the party hinted during its campaign for the Lok Sabha polls earlier this year that it would give the law a re-look if elected to power.

The Congress is expected to safeguard the pro-farmer clauses in the Act. The revenue ministers of some of the states ruled by it sought dilution of the provisions to remove hurdles in acquisition and thus expedite projects.

The other significant change proposed by the MoRD is dilution of the clause that made social impact assessments  mandatory for all projects necessitating acquisition of land.

Mamata asserts her opposition

A day after the Centre made it clear that it would remove the red tape that hampers industries from acquiring land, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee reiterated that her government would not support any forcible acquisition, DHNS reports from Kolkata.

The chief minister mentioned the land banks devoted for industries in West Bengal, apparently pointing out that the Land Acquisition Bill need not be amended to promote industrial development in the state. “We are against forceful acquisition of land. In the West Midnapore district the Haldia Development Authority and West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation have land banks. We will allot land for projects from there,” said Banerjee, who had risen from near-political oblivion in 2006 with the anti-land acquisition movement in Singur.

The chief minister added: “We have increased revenue of the state, our GSDP....growth in the industrial sector is more than national average. From 17th rank we have come to the 1st rank in the 100 days work scheme.” Banerjee said that the state was “still growing” despite the Centre having deducted Rs 1 lakh crore as debt and interest payment. “A new government has come. We want the interest on the loans to be waived. If that is not done, we will launch an intensified movement over it.”