The panel has already arrived at a unanimous agreement on six key issues, including bringing back the consent clause and social impact assessment in the proposed law and now aims at finalising its view on three other issues at the August 10 meeting. It plans to submit the report the very next day, sources in the committee said. The government has also expressed readiness to accept the recommendations of the committee, which has restored some dropped provisions of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) law, but insisted it was not a climbdown as it was always open to changes on which there was a consensus.
The issues that will be on the table for the 30-member Joint Committee of Parliament headed by BJP MP S S Ahluwalia include the provision on returning unutilised land, time period for retrospective application for compensation under the new law and period of review. Under UPA’s land Act of 2013, the land acquired but not utilised for five years had to be returned to the original owners or the land bank.
The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) bill, however, provided for <g data-gr-id="28">return</g> of the unutilised land after either five years or any period specified at the time of setting up of a project, whichever was later.
The amendment to section 113, according to which the power with the state to remove difficulties which might arise in giving effect to the provisions of the Act can only be exercised after a period of five years from the commencement of the Act, as opposed to a shorter period of two years under the 2013 Act, will also be taken up on Monday.
Narendra Modi govt diluting tribal land rights: Sonia Gandhi
Opening another front to attack the Narendra Modi government, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Sunday accused it of diluting tribal land rights and reducing budgetary allocations for health care and other developmental programmes for them. In a statement here, Sonia Gandhi said the government must adopt the recommendations of the <g data-gr-id="38">Virginus</g> <g data-gr-id="39">Xaxa</g> Committee, which was set up by the UPA government in 2013 to assess the socio-economic status of tribals in the country.