The Telangana Congress has submitted a memorandum to President Pranab Mukherjee seeking his intervention and urging him to refuse approval to the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Telangana Amendment) Bill, 2016, passed by the Legislature recently.
Congress President N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, who met the President along with a delegation of senior leaders said that the new law will result in lesser compensation, rehabilitation and resettlement envisioned in 2013 law passed by the Central Government.
The amendment made by the Telangana Government to the 2013 Act of the Central Government allows it to indiscriminately acquire land, without providing rehabilitation and resettlement. It also paves the way for forcible acquisition while paying a token lump sump amount in lieu of rehabilitation and resettlement.
They can also invoke the urgency clause for any type of acquisition of land and avoid carrying out the social impact assessment process which is required to determine if there is indeed a public purpose to justify the acquisition. The new law also applies retrospectively, disqualifies people from seeking the return of their land if lying unutilised.
Mr. Reddy said that the amendments do away with the food security safeguards, reduction in compensation by way of caps, revision of market values of the land. He appealed to the President that the State law be seen as an attempt to take away the hard fought rights accorded to the affected families through the 2013 Act.
