New look land buy Bill back on reform agenda

The Land Acquisition Bill is back, but in a slightly different avatar. A little less than a month after the Bill split the Union Cabinet down the middle, the rural development ministry has sent a draft of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill 2012, to the group of ministers headed by agriculture minister Sharad Pawar.

The Bill had to be sent to a GoM as it faced stiff opposition from commerce minister Anand Sharma and urban development minister Kamal Nath, who termed it as anti-industry.

Though the Jairam Ramesh-headed rural development ministry has incorporated some of these concerns , many of Sharma's key suggestions have not been met. He had been demanding the exemption of Special Economic Zones and National Manufacturing and Investment Zones from the Bill as he believed it would hamper industrial growth.

"Three Acts (SEZ Act, 2005, Work of Defence Act, 1903 and Cantonments Act, 2006) are to be removed from the schedule i.e. the LARR (land Bill) will apply to these acquisitions," reads the draft submitted to the GoM, a copy of which is with Mail Today. "There is no question of exempting SEZs from the Bill. They will have to comply," Ramesh had said earlier. Only linear projects such as railways, highways, major roads, power lines have been exempted. However, Ramesh has made certain important concessions to make the Bill "investor friendly".

For starters, the provision which required consent of all the affected families for the acquisition has been diluted. Now the land can be acquired with the consent of two-thirds of the affected families. Significantly, the Bill will only apply prospectively i.e. only to acquisitions that take place henceforth.

Incorporating Kamal Nath's concern that the relief and rehabilitation measures would be a burden on the acquirer, the draft states payment for relief and rehabilitation cost by acquirer will be a one-off. The draft states: "The acquirer will put monies in the escrow account and ongoing commitments and annuities and benefits will be administered by the agency established by this Act."

Keeping in mind the reservations of a number of state governments, particularly those ruled by non-Congress parties, the new draft gives a great deal of leeway to states.

Compensations are to follow a "sliding scale", which according to the ministry "will give states the flexibility to fix compensation in rural areas depending on their distance from urban centres."

According to the draft, acquisition in tribal areas will be done as a last resort and will have to comply with the Samantha judgment. It also states there will be no double displacement unless the situation is exceptional.

Lastly, the draft states the compensation won't be taken as a base for circle rate for subsequent acquisition to ensure there is no speculative price spiral.

Courtesy: Mail Today