The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government scored another major victory on Thursday when the Land Acquisition Bill, renamed the Right To Fair Compensation And Transparency In Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation And Resettlement Bill 2012, was passed in the Lok Sabha, with 216 members voting in favour of the bill and 19 against it. A total of 381 amendments were moved to the bill, of which 166 were official ones. The passage of Land Acquisition Bill brings to conclusion the purported socialist agenda of the UPA, which had passed the much debated Food Security Bill early this week.
The bill passed on Thursday replaces the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, and has been aggressively pushed for by the Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, ‘I am happy that Land Acquisition Bill has been passed,’ said Gandhi after the voting concluded in Lok Sabha.
According to the bill, developers need to get the consent of up to 80 per cent of people whose land is acquired for private projects and approval of up to 70 per cent of landowners for public-private partnerships. Also the compensation is four times the market value of land in rural areas and two times the value in urban parts. The debate on the bill could only be initiated post noon, because when it was tabled, the opposition benches had demanded an answer from the Prime Minister on the depreciation of rupee against the dollar.
Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh, while introducing the Land Acquisition Bill, said that about 10 political parties had given their suggestions in writing and that he had made an attempt to arrive at a consensus. ‘ I have tried to bring all the parties together; but it may happen that all the parties may be dissatisfied because everyone will have different opinions about the issue,’ said Ramesh. The minister even received a pat on back for his efforts from the leader of opposition, Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj, who said that it was because of the aggressive and proactive manner in which the minister pursued the bill, that it crossed the first hurdle in Parliament.
Earlier, while initiating the debate, BJP President Rajnath Singh said there were a lot of grey areas in the bill, as there are apprehensions that forcible land acquisition would continue. ‘After studying it in full, I feel the bill is far from its objective,’ said Singh. The BJP president added that there should be a mechanism to ensure that land in excess of requirement is not acquired and if that happens, the excess land should be returned to the landowners and not to the land bank.
Congress member Meenakshi Natrajan said the government should streamline information about land records across the country because without having proper land records, the proposed legislation cannot be judiciously implemented.
The debate also had its share of drama with the TMC and the CPI(M) members almost coming to blows.
The bill passed on Thursday replaces the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, and has been aggressively pushed for by the Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, ‘I am happy that Land Acquisition Bill has been passed,’ said Gandhi after the voting concluded in Lok Sabha.
According to the bill, developers need to get the consent of up to 80 per cent of people whose land is acquired for private projects and approval of up to 70 per cent of landowners for public-private partnerships. Also the compensation is four times the market value of land in rural areas and two times the value in urban parts. The debate on the bill could only be initiated post noon, because when it was tabled, the opposition benches had demanded an answer from the Prime Minister on the depreciation of rupee against the dollar.
Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh, while introducing the Land Acquisition Bill, said that about 10 political parties had given their suggestions in writing and that he had made an attempt to arrive at a consensus. ‘ I have tried to bring all the parties together; but it may happen that all the parties may be dissatisfied because everyone will have different opinions about the issue,’ said Ramesh. The minister even received a pat on back for his efforts from the leader of opposition, Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj, who said that it was because of the aggressive and proactive manner in which the minister pursued the bill, that it crossed the first hurdle in Parliament.
Earlier, while initiating the debate, BJP President Rajnath Singh said there were a lot of grey areas in the bill, as there are apprehensions that forcible land acquisition would continue. ‘After studying it in full, I feel the bill is far from its objective,’ said Singh. The BJP president added that there should be a mechanism to ensure that land in excess of requirement is not acquired and if that happens, the excess land should be returned to the landowners and not to the land bank.
Congress member Meenakshi Natrajan said the government should streamline information about land records across the country because without having proper land records, the proposed legislation cannot be judiciously implemented.
The debate also had its share of drama with the TMC and the CPI(M) members almost coming to blows.