‘Land Bill detrimental to farmers’

for farmers:Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Congress cadres (right) staging a protest against the Land Acquisition Bill in the city on Monday.— Photos: R. Ashok and G. Moorthy

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government should give up Land Acquisition Bill that would be detrimental to the life of over 60 crore farmers, Communist Party of India (Marxist) MLA R. Annadurai said on Monday.

Addressing at a protest organised here by the party in which cadre of five southern districts participated, he said that the Land Bill brought by the United Progressive Alliance Government was passed only after several amendments put forth by the BJP were adopted.

The Bill was necessitated after the Comptroller and Audit General pointed out that out of over 45,000 hectares of land acquired in the country after 1991, only 24,430 hectares were put to their proposed use. The Madurai South MLA pointed out that farmers were not given due compensation and as many as 1,660 cases in Punjab and Harayana pertained to inadequate compensation given to land owners.

Though Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed that farmers could get four times the actual land price as compensation, the draconian feature of the Bill was that landlords could not go to court even if officials made any mistake in calculating the compensation, Mr. Annadurai said.

Speaking on the occasion, the party leader, M.N.S. Venkataraman, said that the 2013 Bill had ensured that no land could be acquired without the consent of a minimum of 70 per cent farmers for government projects. Similarly, at least 50 per cent of the land owners should give consent for acquiring land for public-private projects.

However, the present Bill said that the land could be taken without the consent of farmers. Besides, no social impact on account of the acquisition need to be taken into consideration. “It is mysterious as to why the AIADMK which had opposed the Bill in 2013 was supporting it now,” he said. Party leaders, C. Ramakrishnan, C. Pandi and R. Vijayarajan were among those who spoke.

Members of the Congress party also staged a demonstration protesting against the Land Bill. Former MLA H. Vasanthakumar said that the BJP that came to power by promising welfare to the people had only deceived them.

Among the district functionaries Annapoorna R. Thangaraj spoke.