The minister of rural development Jairam Ramesh has secured the backing of the Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi for the Right to Fair Compensation, Resettlement, Rehabilitation and Transparency in Land Acquisition Bill. The bill was recently referred to a group of ministers [GOM] after five cabinet ministers expressed reservations about it.
Ramesh met Gandhi on Wednesday. Sources say that the Congress general secretary expressed surprise at the amount of resentment shown by the five ministers. Kamal Nath, Anand Sharma, C P Joshi, Veerappa Moily and Ajit Singh had objected to few provisions in the bill.
Sources say that Gandhi plans to speak to the concerned ministers directly to ensure that the bill is not delayed further and is tabled in the winter session of Parliament. If it is not tabled in the winter session this year, it will mean that bill goes to the more difficult budget session, where the focus may largely on financial issues.
The land acquisition bill has been one of the favoured projects of Gandhi. Ramesh, while introducing the bill in the Lok Sabha last year, had given credit to the Congress general secretary for it. During the Bhatta-Parsaul agitation, Gandhi had pitched for the new land bill. During the election campaign for the Uttar Pradesh assembly election, he had said that his government was committed to bringing the bill and blamed the opposition parties for stalling it. The bill at that time was being discussed by the standing committee, which was headed by a Bharatiya Janata Party MP.
While the ministry of rural development has introduced higher compensation for acquired land in this bill, the main opposition from few ministers towards the bill has been that it would hurt the investor sentiment and will harm industrial growth.