Govt blinks, to water down provisions in Land Act amendment

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government appears to have backed off from some of the provisions contained in the Land Acquisition Ordinance it had promulgated late last year, which sought to modify the UPA’s Land Act of 2013.

Sources have told CNN IBN that the government has decided to remove social infrastructure projects under the public-private partnership (PPP) mode from the list of exempted sectors.

In the ordinance, the government had added five sectors (defence, rural infra, affordable housing, industrial corridors, infra and social infra projects including PPP) to a list that would not require owners’ consent while acquiring land as well as exempted them from submitting a social impact assessment (SIA) study with respect to the deal.

The government claimed the move would help simplify the process of land acquisition and remove bottlenecks that industrialists claim have stalled projects worth lakhs of crores of rupees.

But the ordinance did not pass muster with most political parties across the opposition as well as within the ruling NDA coalition, with many terming the move “anti-farmer” and objecting to the removal of consent clause and requirement of SIA.

As a result, the ruling BJP, which has a minority in the upper legislative house, Rajya Sabha, has faced difficulty in having the bill to replace the ordinance passed.

The government will table the amended bill in Parliament today, sources said, adding that it has sought to placate the opposition by building in other safeguards as well.

These are letting states create a land bank of vacant lands for acquisition for development projects, setting up a “hassle free grievance mechanism for land losers, mandatory employment of farm labours (working on the acquired land) in projects that are developed on it, among others.

The government has also watered down the prosecution provision. While earlier, the ordinance said land owners could only move the high court for appeals against a land acquisition process, now they can also approach a district authority.

It is unclear whether opposition parties will agree to removal of some of the contentious points of the ordinance.