Once the Bill becomes an Act, the proposals will be implemented with retrospective effect in case the award has not been made in Land Acquisition Act, 1894 or possession has not been taken.
The draft was put in the public domain a month ago for inviting comments. If the law comes into force, the Government will not acquire land for private companies for private purposes.
The National Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation & Resettlement Bill, 2011 includes a comprehensive compensation policy for land-owners and livelihood losers, including the landless, particularly the Scheduled Tribes. For urban areas, it proposes an amount not less than twice the market rate. In rural areas, the amount should be not less than four times the original market value.
The Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India (CREDAI) has expressed concern on some of the provisions of the draft National Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation & Resettlement Bill, 2011.
Reacting to reports of the Cabinet approval accorded to the Bill the real estate developers' organisation reiterated its concerns on the provisions relating to the valuation of land and bringing private acquisition of land under the ambit of this law.
Mr. Lalit Kumar Jain, National President, CREDAI, said the proposed law is a ‘huge setback' for industrial development and urbanisation.
Bringing private acquisition of land under the ambit of this law which covers rehabilitation and resettlement is ‘disastrous' and creates opportunity for more legal complication.
For instance, private developers who purchase land for development after negotiations with land owners to mutual satisfaction simply cannot afford the provisions of rehabilitation and annuity. This provision only creates permanent land encumbrance and enable unlimited claims that will make township development unviable.
Simply ruling out agriculture land from development is also unviable in terms of industrialisation and urbanisation. Both these happen only as an expansion of developed areas and in river basins. The Government should look at creating irrigation infrastructure to expand agriculture land. It should abandon its populist, please-all approach for more pragmatic policies, Jain said.
Mr. Prakash Challa, MD, SSPDL Ltd and chairman, Finance and Taxation Committee, Credai, said the proposed law in its present form will result in escalation of land costs. It also provides a window for the influential to manipulate land availability by ‘unhealthy cornering of land' by a few.
While CREDAI is for providing adequate compensation and protecting the livelihood of the land owners, the Bill does not adequately address the valuation of land. Simply providing for multiple times the market value as compensation will only contribute to driving up prices. While the Bill provides for land acquisition for public good, driving up land cost will have an adverse impact in the long run, he said.
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