Govt plans to let owner buy back acquired land if highway not built

To silence critics who decry acquisition of land for infrastructure projects,the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has sought the power to vest back unused acquired land to the original owner....

To silence critics who decry acquisition of land for infrastructure projects,the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has sought the power to vest back unused acquired land to the original owner.

In the draft National Highways Amendment Bill 2010,the Ministry has proposed a clause that if a planned road is abandoned,the original owner will reserve the right to buy back the land by returning the money paid by the government paid for the purchase. Plus the owner will not have to pay the appreciation price but only that received when he sold the land.

The new practice will be followed by the National Highways Authority of India for all national highway projects in the country.

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All land not utilised once a project is abandoned or the route of the new highway is changed,will be notified as surplus by the NHAI. Once this is done,the original owner will have the first right to refuse the buy back of the land, a senior official said. If the owner declines to buy back the land at the price paid by the NHAI at the time of acquisition,the land would be open for selling to other interested buyers.

The Bill also seeks to introduce a two-step mechanism to calculate the cost of the land at the time of acquisition by NHAI.

In the first step,the price of the land would be calculated on the basis of the average land price of top 50 per cent sales (in terms of value) in the past three years. The land cost would also be estimated according to the price guidelines for the area maintained by the Collector. After arriving at the two values,the higher of the two would prevail as the price that the NHAI will pay to the land owner.

Currently,the land price is calculated based on the average price of all land sales in the area in the past three years.

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National Highways Authority of India

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