Cabinet approves Land Acquisition & Rehabilitation Bill

The much-debated and awaited Land Aquisition & Rehabilitation Bill has finally been approved by the Cabinet. Breaking the news, Siddharth Zarabi of CNBC-TV18 reports that the team led by Jairam Ramesh has approved the final bill with certain changes and there will be no further group of ministers (GoM) meet on it. Sharad Pawar, Veerappa Moily and Mamata Banerjee, who earlier has reservations about the bill, too are said to have approved the bill. "The exact details of the bill are not known yet, however, the final bill is ready for presentation at the monsoon session of parliament," he says.

The bill is being hailed as a victory since it is the first time that land acquisition is being clubbed with rehabilitation and resettlement. Also, Minister Ramesh had put the bill up on open platform for discussion by the public until August 30. It is speculated that the final draft has indeed considered all the recommendations and is a comprehensive file.
The bill will be introduced in parliament next week, before the end of the monsoon session on September 7. Once it is introduced, it could be sent to the Standing Committee for consideration.
Industry body FICCI had suggested that the proposed Land Acquisition Act should apply to the private companies only if they buy 500 acre of land or more, instead of the 100 acre as suggested in the Draft Law. The industry feels the threshold of 100 acre is very low for projects, especially in rural areas and this may only encourage smaller and fragmented holdings particularly in the mining sector. Sources reveal that certain suggestions of FICCI has indeed been incorporated in the final bill.
Earlier during the day, the Rashtriya Lok Dal termed the proposed Land Acquisition Bill as "impractical and ineffective", saying it lacked enough provisions to safeguard farmers against any pressure from the government machinery.
Zarabi reports that Jairam Ramesh has been asked to be more accommodative in terms of the balancing industry and farmer grievance. I&B minister Ambika Soni is expected to soon reveal the clauses to the public. Also watch the accompanying video for Siddharth Zarabi's report