After series of discussion with the National Advisory Council (NAC) and the Planning Commission, the government on Friday unveiled the National Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2011, for wider public consultations.
While ruling out acquisition of multi-cropped and irrigated land, the Bill, however, has allowed the private sector companies to buy land directly from farmers and owners. The Bill is silent on whether the state governments would acquire the land themselves for industrial projects.
The Bill proposes compensation of amount twice that of the market value of the land in case of urban areas while in case of rural areas the compensation should not be less than six times the original value of the land.
Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh on Friday gave the final nod for the much-anticipated Bill. After getting inputs from the public, the revised Bill would be placed in the winter session of Parliament.
A foreword to the Bill by the minister said: ?The issue of who acquires land is less important than the process of land acquisition, compensation for land acquired and the resettlement and rehabilitation process, package and conditions. The objective is to make the process of land acquisition easy, transparent and fair for both sides in each instance.?
In a direct indictment of the Uttar Pradesh government, which evoked the urgency clause for acquiring land in Greater Noida that was subsequently given to real estate players, the proposed legislation also trimmed down possibilities of invoking the urgency clause to only for defence, natural calamities and under “rarest of rare” circumstances.
As reported by FE on Thursday, the Bill sticks to the NAC’s recommendation that mandatory consent has to be taken from at least 80% of the affected people as a pre-requisite for commencing land acquisition.
?Besides, Social Impact Assessment has been made mandatory where the area to be acquired is equal to or greater than 100 acre,? the ministry says in a note.
? This draft Bill seeks to balance the need for facilitating land acquisition for various public purposes including infrastructure development, industrialisation and urbanisation, while at the same time meaningfully addressing the concerns of farmers and those whose livelihoods are dependent on the land being acquired,? the note adds.
The Bill would supersede the existing 18 laws on land acquisition, including those related to highways, SEZs, defence and railways.
On the comprehensive rehabilitation and resettlement, the Bill has provisions for subsistence allowance at Rs 3,000 per month per family for 12 months and Rs 2,000 per month per family as annuity for 20 years, with appropriate index for inflation. One acre of land will be given to each family in the command area, if the land is acquired for an irrigation project.