The Congress remains adamant that it will not concede ground on provisions relating to the consent clause, social impact assessment and some other critical portions of the Land Acquisition Act, 2013. In a note submitted to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Second Ordinance, 2015, the party members make clear its unwillingness to accept at least eight of the 15 government-sponsored amendments to the Act, while agreeing to accept the remaining seven that are of a trivial nature.
In its note, the Congress opposes the Modi government’s efforts to replace private companies with private entities, as that would broaden the list of parties for whom land can be acquired to include proprietorships, partnerships, non-profit organisations or any other entities that would be able to make a request to the government to acquire land for a public purpose. The 2013 Act only permitted acquisition for government agencies and private companies (if consented to by those affected).
Special categoryObjecting to the creation of a special category of projects that are exempt from consent and social impact assessment, a review by an expert group and the bar placed on acquisition of multi-crop and agricultural land, the note points out that by placing five items in the special category — including defence, industrial corridors and infrastructure projects, including projects under public-private partnership, — the NDA government has ensured the nullification of all safeguards in the 2013 law as most acquisitions will fall in these categories.
The Congress objects to the government’s expansion of the definition of industrial corridors to include land up to one km on either side of the designated road or railway line.
The Congress describes the government’s inclusion of an amendment that says it will first try to determine if the land being acquired is the “bare minimum” required for the project in question as a “cosmetic” addition that it has taken from the social impact assessment process.
Pointing out that thousands of farmers had benefited from the retrospective clause in the 2013 Act that ensured the return of acquired land if unutilised for a long period of time, the note says the NDA government has amended that clause to exclude the time spent under litigation where a stay order has been passed from the period an applicant is required to satisfy, nullified the definition of ‘compensation paid’ laid down by the Supreme Court, while saying that any amount paid into any “designated account” shall be sufficient to disqualify a person from having his land returned even if the person has not accepted the compensation.
