Land bill to get back consent, social impact safeguards
New Delhi:
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
The Centre has proposed restoration of the key provisions for “consent“ and “social impact assessment“ in the Land Acquisition Bill -a climbdown aimed at wriggling out of a stalemate triggered by its bold attempt to liberalize the law resented by the industry and seen to have slowed land acquisitions.
It's learnt the Centre would undo most of the contentious changes it had brought to the Act, which invited criticism that it was helping corporates at the cost of farmers. The fresh proposals are aimed at generat ing the widest possible consensus on the land bill before a joint committee of Parliament. As per plans, the government would move to scratch Clause 3 and 5 of the land ordinance. It would mean removing the exemption of five types of projects from the requirement of consent and social impact assessment (SIA). The UPA government's law had provided for consent of 80% `affected families' for private projects and 70% for PPP projects.
The thinking in the Centre seems to be that a non-contro versial central Act can leave room for states to decide on the specifics of exemptions in their local rules and laws.
SIA is the study to assess if an acquisition is justified and its impact on facilities of the displaced families. At the same time, the Cen tre is likely to undo the change of `private companies' to `private entities', thereby laying down that the acquisition can only be done for companies.
In contrast, the government may prefer to only partially restore the clause that laid down that land taken possession of but not utilized for five years be returned to the original owners.While the BJP regime had amended the UPA 's clause to give the option of `five years' or `a period specified for setting up of any project', whichever was later. Now, it is learnt the Centre may change “the period specified for setting up of any project“ to “for such other period as the appropriate government may determine after recording the reasons“ from the date of possession.
The Centre, thus, may not limit the timeline to five years but add that the government undertake due diligence on time a project would need to get off the ground. Earlier, the provision gave the impression that the industry involved could give any timeline. It appears that the government may do away with the penal clause altogether. The NDA had amended stringent rules against the offences by officials to state that authorities seek sanction for prosecution of officials under Section 197 of CrPC. Now it appears that any offense will attract the normal proceedings under CrPC.
The UPA law stated if an award for acquisition had been made five years before the enactment of new Act but the land possession was not done and compensation had not been paid, then the proceedings of the earlier acquisition would lapse and fresh proceedings would start.
