Parl panel on Land bill to meet today

Days before the first half of Budget session comes to an end, a Parliamentary panel will sit on Monday to discuss the controversial land acquisition bill of 2015 through which the NDA government sought to make key alterations in UPA’s 2013 land law but later changed its mind.

The Joint Committee on the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Second Amendment) Bill 2015, headed by BJP MP S S Ahluwalia will take a view on the remaining clauses of the bill.

The government is hopeful that a consensus will emerge on all issues related to the bill. The committee has already been given at least five extensions.

In November last year, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had hoped for “some consensus” on the legislation. The panel had on December 16 decided to seek a fresh extension of its term till the beginning of the Budget session as only a few states had by then tendered their response to various clauses of the bill.