Minister,govt differ over land acquisition

Yadav’s writing to Ramesh is significant at a time when the government of India has asked Haryana to send a copy of its policy to them to be considered for ideas that can be incorporated in the new central legislation.

Yadav has suggested that fertile land which gives a farmer two crops an year should not be acquired at all. Only barren land should be acquired for industrialisation and urbanisation.

He adds that in cases where fertile land is needed to be acquired for a specific public cause,the farmer should be compensated at market rates,following negotiations with the land owners. There should be no forcible acquisition of land.

He has further suggested that farmers should be given an option of either taking cash compensation for their land or made share holders in the development that takes place on their land. “In case farmers opt to be made a part of the development process,the state should return at least 30 per cent of the developed acquired land to them which they can retain or dispose off on their own,” said Yadav. “This will ensure that the farmer,whose land is acquired,is not rendered jobless and is also not uprooted from his ancestral place of living,” he added.

Yadav said the government should also give job to at least one member of the family whose land is acquired.

Yadav’s differences with Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda over the issue of the land acquisition policy are well known,with the minister pressing for changes to make the policy more pro-farmer. Hooda’s other detractor within the party,Union Minister Kumari Selja too has been objecting to forcible acquisition of land. Cabinet minister Mahender Pratap Singh had also given several suggestions to the chief minister for improvements in the state’s policy.

Hooda on the other hand has been publicly announcing that Haryana has the best land acquisition policy in the country and it has also been hailed by the Congress party supremo Sonia Gandhi.