Parliament panel to submit report on Land Bill by first week of August

The Joint Parliamentary Panel vetting the Land Bill has got another extension. “There is a fresh request to grant some more time. Now, the report is expected to be submitted in the first week of August,” Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan told reporters after an all-party meeting on the eve of the Monsoon Session of Parliament.

Originally, the committee was to submit its report on the first day of the session, but this was extended by a week.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also indicated that the government will consider suggestions from the Opposition on the Land Bill.

Mahajan said on Sunday that she had received a letter from panel Chairman SS Ahluwalia of the BJP seeking another extension till the first week of August as the members wanted to seek certain clarifications from the government on the amendments brought to the 2013 law.

Deadline looming In order to give statutory effect to changes, the government has promulgated the Land ordinance thrice. If the government is unable to manage to get the Bill passed in the monsoon session, the ordinance will lapse on September 1.

The government saw some hope on the Land Bill with the Prime Minister finding some logic in the opinion expressed by SP leader Ram Gopal Yadav during an all-party meeting called by Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu.

Quoting Yadav, Modi said: “It is time that we move forward on the Land Bill issue, incorporating suggestions from all sides. We should move positively on this issue.”

Subsequent to Modi’s comment, Rural Development Minister Chaudhury Birendra Singh indicated that a fresh Land Bill incorporating various changes could be brought in.

“We need to see what the Joint Parliamentary Committee report says. If there is a consensus in the Committee, it is good for national interest as well as farmers. If the Committee makes a lot of suggestions and recommendations, we may have to bring in a new Bill (incorporating them),” he said.

The proposed Land Bill, which is to replace the ‘Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013,’ has become a challenge for the government as the main Opposition Congress is unwilling to relax its position on it. The government cannot get the Bill passed in the Rajya Sabha without support from the principal Opposition Party as it is in a minority there.

It is believed that the government will hold the Land Bill in abeyance for the time being so that it can get the Constitution Amendment Bill for introduction of a Goods & Services Tax (GST) passed during the Monsoon Session.

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