Land acquisition law on Modi government radar

After rolling out big-bang fuel reforms, the Naren­dra Modi gov­ern­ment has turned its atten­tion to the land acqui­si­tion law that’s regard­ed as hav­ing a crip­pling effect on infra­struc­ture and indus­tri­al devel­op­ment, a cor­ner­stone of the admin­is­tra­tion’s plan to revive growth and ensure that its ben­e­fits reach the poorest.

Finance Min­is­ter Arun Jait­ley held a meet­ing on Tues­day with all gov­ern­ment depart­ments and min­istries with a stake in the mat­ter to ascer­tain their con­cerns about the law and the issues they faced in imple­ment­ing projects because of it. Sort­ing out the law is imper­a­tive — Modi has put his weight behind the ambi­tious ‘Make in India’ ini­tia­tive to boost man­u­fac­tur­ing and the new gov­ern­ment is also look­ing to get infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment mov­ing again after years of stasis. 

The leg­is­la­tion, enact­ed by the pre­vi­ous Unit­ed Pro­gres­sive Alliance gov­ern­ment, has drawn flak from indus­try. It has also been crit­i­cised by gov­ern­ment depart­ments and states, includ­ing some Con­gress-led ones, for being cum­ber­some and lead­ing to a halt in land acqui­si­tion, with­out which lit­tle devel­op­ment is possible.

“The meet­ing was called to essen­tial­ly under­stand the kind of issues faced by var­i­ous stake­hold­er min­istries and depart­ments,” a gov­ern­ment offi­cial who attend­ed the meet­ing told ET.

Anoth­er offi­cial who attend­ed the meet­ing said depart­ments such as high­ways are fac­ing intractable hur­dles in terms of esca­la­tion of costs and delays. The DIPP has also strong­ly crit­i­cised the law for curb­ing devel­op­ment. “Reha­bil­i­ta­tion and reset­tle­ment is a huge issue… There are con­cerns about the inabil­i­ty to pro­vide jobs in some cas­es,” said the offi­cial cit­ed above.

The BJP’s vic­to­ries in the recent Haryana and Maha­rash­tra assem­bly elec­tions have strength­ened the resolve of the Modi gov­ern­ment to send out clear sig­nals on reforms. In the past few days it’s made changes in labour rules, besides decon­trol­ling diesel and rais­ing gas prices. This has perked up sen­ti­ment and led to expec­ta­tions of more pol­i­cy changes in the offing.

“Mes­sage on reforms is loud and clear… that some more tough ones are on the way,” said a senior gov­ern­ment official.

The Right to Fair Com­pen­sa­tion and Trans­paren­cy in Land Acqui­si­tion, Reha­bil­i­ta­tion and Reset­tle­ment Act, which was cham­pi­oned by for­mer rur­al devel­op­ment min­is­ter Jairam Ramesh, took effect on Jan­u­ary 1. The law was drawn up after vio­lent clash­es in West Ben­gal and else­where because land was said to have been tak­en away from farm­ers with­out ade­quate com­pen­sa­tion. How­ev­er, no land has been acquired for pub­lic pur­pos­es under the new Act because of some of its provisions.

The key issues high­light­ed by the depart­ments are relat­ed to the con­sent clause def­i­n­i­tion of ‘affect­ed fam­i­ly’, social impact assess­ment, ret­ro­spec­tive clause for com­pen­sa­tion and pro­vi­sions for return­ing the unutilised land to orig­i­nal owners.

Jait­ley had ear­li­er said he would con­sult polit­i­cal par­ties on the law to see if exemp­tions could be carved out.

West Ben­gal has pitched for its own land acqui­si­tion pol­i­cy while Tamil Nadu has termed the law an infringe­ment on its auton­o­my. Uttar Pradesh has sought sim­i­lar pow­ers for the state gov­ern­ment while Ker­ala has object­ed to the pri­or con­sent clause.

Rur­al devel­op­ment min­is­ter Nitin Gad­kari had met state rev­enue min­is­ters and sec­re­taries in June but the issue was put on the back­burn­er because of the assem­bly elections.

The cur­rent leg­is­la­tion replaced the Land Acqui­si­tion Act of 1894. It requires devel­op­ers to get the con­sent of up to 80% of the peo­ple whose land is acquired for pri­vate projects and of 70% in the case of pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ship projects. This includes land acqui­si­tion under pub­lic pur­pos­es for indus­tri­al cor­ri­dors and Nation­al Invest­ment and Man­u­fac­tur­ing Zones (NIMZ). Besides, it pro­vides for com­pen­sa­tion as high as four times of the total cost of acqui­si­tion in rur­al areas and two times in urban areas.

Source: Eco­nom­ic times