Questioning the effectiveness of the UPA-introduced Land Bill, the NDA government on Tuesday said most of the States have not acquired land “at all” over the past one-and-a-half years. However, buckling under Opposition pressure, the government referred the new Land Bill to a joint Parliamentary panel.
“Between January 1, 2014 and till date, most of the 29 States have not acquired land. Either there is some problem with the Act or there is no need to acquire the land.
“It can’t be that no State needs land for any purpose,” Rural Development Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh told the Lok Sabha after a nearly four-hour discussion on the Bill.
Keeping this in mind, the new Bill intends to bring about nine changes including relaxation from consent clause and social impact assessment in acquiring land for certain kind of projects, he added. The Bill, once enacted, will replace the ordinance which was re-promulgated on April 3.
Singh also rejected the Opposition charge that the Bill is against the interests of farmers, but maintained that development has to be undertaken as well.
“The Bill is in favour of farmers. We have to strengthen both the wheels — farmers and industry — to develop the country,” he said while alleging massive land grabbing by the previous Congress government in Haryana.
Singh further said the previous government had notified around 20,000 acres of land under Section 4 & 6 of the State Law. Such notification paves the way for acquisition by the State.
After notification, builders and developers approached farmers, luring them “by paying say ₹12 lakh as against ₹5-7 lakh proposed by the State government.
“With this, developers acquired all the land and then Conversion or Change of Land Use (CLU) was permitted, making way for construction of multi-storied apartments on multi-crop land,” he pointed out.
Joint panel membersLater, Singh proposed setting up a 30-member joint panel to review the new Bill.
Of these, 20 members will be from the Lok Sabha and the balance from the Rajya Sabha.
Lok Sabha members in the panel will include SS Ahluwalia, Kalyan Banerjee, Bhartruhari Mahtab, Chirag Paswan, Mohammad Salim, Anurag Thakur and KV Thomas. The Rajya Sabha will nominate its members following a formal announcement, likely on Wednesday. Ahluwalia is likely to be named the panel head.
The committee has been asked to give its report to the Lok Sabha Speaker by the first day of the first week of the next Session.
The Monsoon session normally starts in end-July or early August. Though the government is not bound to accept the recommendations of the committee, political consideration may lead it to do so.