The government has also indicated that it is no longer in a hurry on the Land Acquisition Bill and it would go by the recommendations of the joint panel. With the panel likely to submit its report only in the first week of the Winter Session, the bill’s fate will now be known only after the Bihar Assembly polls.
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The Congress and several other opposition parties had firmly objected to changes made in the land bill passed by the United Progressive Alliance government in 2013.
According to reports, three pending clauses, including one pertaining to compulsory return of the land to farmers if the land remains unutilised for five years, will be discussed in the meeting.
As friction continued in the meeting, Ahluwalia suggested since there were too many contentious issues that needed to be resolved before the bill had a smooth passage through the House and since MPs were in no mood to relent, perhaps it would be better to postpone the report till the winter session. He told members that the panel would seek time from the Lok Sabha Speaker to submit its report in the first week of the Winter Session in place of Tuesday as had been scheduled earlier. However, if such an award was made five years or more before the enactment of The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (LARR) Act, 2013 and physical possession of land had not been taken or compensation not paid, the UPA law will apply. READ ALSO: GST more important than land bill: Adi Godrej At the same time, section 2.1 allows for private companies to participate in infrastructure projects (barring setting up of private hospitals, education institutions and hotels) as long as the government “owns, holds and uses” the land acquired for various projects.
The issue of section 24(2) was widely debated at the meeting of the panel on July 27 as well. The Congress MPs wanted the panel not to change the provision that was in the 2013 law passed by the UPA government.
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The way for a climb-down by the government was paved when all 11 BJP members on the panel moved amendments seeking to bring back key provisions of the UPA’s land law, including the consent clause and social impact assessment, after dropping the changes brought in by the Modi dispensation in December 2014 and subsequently re-validated thrice through Ordinances.
