Govt halts land bill passage for now

State govt has decided not to table its pet land bill in the Assembly during the current session.

The state government has decided not to table its pet land bill that would lay bare its compensation package for land acquisition,in the Assembly during the current session. The decision comes even as the the copy of the West Bengal Land Requisition and Resettlement Bill,2011 were circulated among members of the House on Tuesday.

We had no plans to pass the bill in this session. We will place it in the House at an appropriate time, said Commerce and Industries Minister Partha Chatterjee. He added that a section of the people were trying to create a confusion.

Government chief whip Sovandeb Chattopadhyay said the House business advisory committee decided that the land bill will not be placed in the current session of the Assembly. But he did not cite any reason for not tabling the bill in the current session which ends on Friday.

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Sources,however,said was opposition to the bill both from Governor M K Narayanan and state advocate general Anindya Mitra.

Mitras contention was that since the central government was going to place a similar bill in Parliament amending the 1894 Land Acquisition Act,the state government should wait to see the contents of the central bill first.

On circulating the copy of the bill among the members,Speaker Biman Banerjee said that the copies were circulated mistakenly but that did not mean that the the bill would have to tabled.

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