The Hindu Business Line : Bills to fine-tune rehab, land acquisition policies

The objectives
With notification of the National Policy on R&R 2007 and the introduction of the twin Bills, there would be minimal displacement of people when land is acquired for projects.
The policy postulates that the use of agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes be kept to the minimum.
The proposal will ensure that the land acquired is not transferred to any other purpose except for a public purpose.

G. Srinivasan

New Delhi, Dec. 6 With land acquisition for projects and compensation for affected people remaining a ticklish issue, the twin Bills — the Rehabilitation and Resettlement (R&R) Bill 2007 and Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill — to be introduced in Parliament on Friday, propose to make a detailed Social Impact Assessment (SIA) on projects involving displacement of families beyond defined thresholds mandatory and bar the jurisdiction of civil courts on land acquisition disputes by proposing alternate mechanisms.

Official sources said the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill 2007, seeking amendments to the original 1894 Act, though served as an effective tool for the acquisition of land for public purposes and also for companies for undertaking projects, some provisions remained inadequate on acquisition of private land and property.

Hence it proposes the establishment of the Land Acquisition Compensation Disputes Settlement Authority on acquisition of land by the State Government and another for the Centre for the acquisition of land by the Central Government.

Transfer issue

The amendment Bill proposes to make the various steps of the land acquisition process time-bound. On the utilisation of the land acquired and their transfer, it is proposed that the land acquired is not transferred to any other purpose except for a public purpose and that too, not without prior approval of the appropriate government.

When any land or part thereof acquired under the Act remains unutilised for a defined period from the date of taking over possession, the same would return to the appropriate government.

Where the land acquired under the Act is transferred to any person for a consideration, a part of the net unearned income so accruing to the transferor would be shared among the persons from whom the lands were acquired or their heirs, in proportion to the value at which the lands were acquired.

The entitled persons should have the option to take up to 20 per cent of their rehabilitation grant and compensation amount in the form of shares, if the Requiring Body is a company authorised to issue shares and debentures. With prior approval of the government, this proportion could be as high as 50 per cent of the rehabilitation grant and compensation amount.

Under the R&R bill, 2007, the proposed SIA would take on board the impact that the project would have on public and community properties, assets and infrastructure and the concerned government must specify that the ameliorative measures for addressing the said impact might not be less than what is provided under any scheme or programme of the Central or State government in operation in the area.

SIA report scan

The SIA report would be scanned by an independent multi-disciplinary expert group which would also include social science and rehabilitation experts.

The sources said that with the notification of the National Policy on R&R 2007 on October 31, 2007 and the introduction of the twin Bills in Parliament on December 7, 2007, there would be minimal displacement of people when land is acquired for projects with the policy postulating that the use of agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes be kept to the minimum.

Regional disparity

When contacted, the Minister of State for Commerce, Mr Jairam Ramesh, said that he fully supports the twin legislative Bills as they address the concerns of project oustees. He, however, noted that out of the 402 formally approved Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and 172 notified ones, as much as 75 per cent is accounted for just five States of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Gujarat which would only widen regional disparities.

Mr Ramesh said that he was also concerned about two-thirds of the notified SEZs being in information-technology (IT) and IT-enabled services and not across manufactured products which alone would provide substantial job opportunities.

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