House panel: Govt must not acquire land for pvt projects

The report blamed the amendments in the Land Acquisition Act,1894,carried out during Congress regimes of 1962 and 1984 for opening the “floodgates to acquisition of land by the state for companies” that has “unleashed tribal and rural backlash” in the form of Naxal unrest. The panel observed that the current Bill has failed to rectify those errors. In fact,it observed that the Bill that was introduced in Parliament “throws the doors wide open for any kind of land acquisition by the state for companies” against the preamble to the LARR Bill,2011.

The committee was learnt to be against acquisition of “any land under agriculture cultivation”. The relevant provisions of the current Bill bar land acquisition of “irrigated multi-cropped land” except in rare cases with conditions of compensatory agricultural land development for agriculture.

“The report seeks to radically overhaul the substantive provisions of the Bill to match the high rhetoric of the preamble of the Bill,” Mani Shankar Aiyar,member of the committee and Congress’s Rajya Sabha MP,told The Indian Express over phone from Chhattisgarh.

The report recommended against granting exemptions to 16 Central Acts,including the SEZ Act,Land Acquisition (Mines) Act,Atomic Energy Act,Coal Bearing Areas Acquisition and Development Act,and Electricity Act,by putting them in Schedule 4. The report also suggested removal of Clause 99 that sought to vest the Centre powers to “amend or alter” any of the four schedules related to determination of compensation for land,rehabilitation and resettlement,elements of infrastructure for rehabilitation,and exemption of 16 Central Acts.

Without suggesting change in the compensation formula,it said the Bill should have provisions to “constitute multi-member land pricing commission” for determining the market value for pegging the compensation for each case of land acquisition. In addition,the panel suggested taking “consent” of the gram sabha for land acquisition.

“I haven’t gone through the report. After examining the recommendations,we will bring the Bill in the Monsoon Session of Parliament,” said Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh after tabling of the report.