Instead, the panel, which has proposed legislation favouring landowners, recommends that private companies and public-private partnerships would have to buy land in the open market.
The report that was tabled in Parliament on recently suggested that agricultural land should not be acquired & that a multi-member land-pricing authority should decide the cost of the land and the compensation instead of paying out a fixed amount.
The parliamentary panel headed by Mr. Bharatiya Janata Party member Sumitra Mahajan has denied exemption even for the acquisition of land for infrastructure, mining and power projects, defence and SEZs (special economic zones).
In the original Bill— the LARR (Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement) Bill, 2011—which was introduced in September, the government had exempted land acquisitions processed under various Acts, including the SEZ Act, the Atomic Energy Act, the Land Acquisition (Mines) Act and the National Highways Act, among others.
Mr. Chandrajit Banerjee, Director general, CII (Confederation of Indian Industry) said, “It would have a strong impact on the industry. We are concerned about the manufacturing sector. The LARR Bill had included industry in the definition of public purpose as industry creates wealth for the country. These recommendations do not seem to have taken into account the need for industry. It will make the whole process complicated. It will have a major impact on infrastructure development in the agriculture sector.”
The standing committee on rural development, comprising members belonging to various parties in both houses of Parliament, said that in developed countries such as the US, Japan, Germany or Canada, land is purchased by enterprises.
Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyar, a senior Congress leader and a member of the panel, said, “The 3 principal factors of production are land, labour & capital. Since there is no question of the state acquisition of labour or capital, there is no logic at all for (the) government to acquire land.”
The committee further said that the entity for which the land is acquired should not be “any public-private partnership or private company”.
Land acquisition has become a controversial issue, after protests by farmers against unfair compensation and forcible acquisition in various parts of the country turned violent and became politicized. And it turned out to be the key issue that led to the end of the three-decade-old Left rule in West Bengal and played a crucial role in the ousting of the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party government in Uttar Pradesh in recent assembly elections. Both Congress president Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, through the National Advisory Council, and her son and party general secretary Mrs. Rahul Gandhi, through political campaigns, had pressured the government to make the Bill more farmer friendly.
Critical of the original Bill, Aiyar said that despite a “fancy preamble”, the substantive portions of the Bill do not live up to it. “The provisions for rehabilitation and resettlement are decided bureaucratically with no participation of the people,” he said.
The panel also ruled out suggestions from some state governments to extend the emergency clause related to defence, national security or national calamities to certain infrastructure projects. However, it accepted the state governments’ suggestion to reduce the time period to return the land, if unused, to the owners, from 10 to five years.
The committee insisted that the government would not make amendments to the legislation through just a notification, but will seek Parliament’s consent for the changes.
Src: livemint.com
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