Modi government ready to accept recommendations of Parliament land panel

With the Assembly elections due in Bihar later this year and its rivals making the Land Bill a key poll issue, the government appears to have decided that discretion is the better part of valour.

The Monsoon Session of Parliament is sitting on a pile of unfinished legislation, including the passage of the Goods and Services Tax Bill, Land Bill, Real Estate Regulator Bill, Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Bill, Whistle Blowers Protection (Amendment) Bill, Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Bill, and Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Amendment Bill, among others.

The 30-member joint Select Committee of Parliament, headed by SS Ahluwalia, was scheduled to wrap up consultation and submit by this week its report on the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2015.

“We have made it clear from the start that the country’s progress depended on land acquisition being speeded up”.

The amendment of section 113, according to which the power with the State to remove difficulties which might arise in giving effect to the provisions of the Act can only be exercised after a period of five years from the commencement of the Act as opposed to a shorter period of two years under the 2013 Act will be taken up on Tuesday.

Modi Sarkar falls back on Congress Land bill; break in NDA ranks forces govt to withdraw all amendments.

Saffron affiliates including Swadeshi Jagaran Manch, Bhartiya Kisan Sangh, Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh and Akhil Bhartiya Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram have also opposed the bill and demanded restoration of the consent clause and social impact assessment.

The move on the land bill is expected to have a positive impact as both houses of Parliament are facing continuous logjam over the last eight days with the Congress not allowing any legislative business.

“The committee has to consider three more clauses”.

“This is not opposition but their suggestions be the views expressed by allies or the amendments given by the BJP MPs”.

Out of these nine six including the provisions dealing with consent clause, social impact assessment, replacing the term private company with private entity were discussed yesterday and a consensus emerged on them.

In its Ordinances, the Modi government removed the consent and SIA clauses for five types of acquisitions – defence, rural infrastructure, affordable housing, industrial corridors and infrastructure projects being implemented under the public-private partnership (PPP) mode.

The original Act required the consent of at least 70 per cent of farmers in the area where land is to be acquired for such projects.

Tomorrow, the panel will discuss the bill’s provision to extend the deadline for return of unutilised land to any length of time specified in the project proposal.

In the 2013 Act, SIA was to be conducted to identify affected families and calculate the social impact on people when a particular piece of land is acquired.