New Delhi: ‘The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2012’ will be introduced in Rajya Sabha on Wednesday for debate and voting. Last week the Lok Sabha passed the Bill with 216 votes in favor and 19 against it.
The Bill is expected to sail through in the Upper House as the Congress-led government at the Centre has agreed to make some amendments suggested by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh has agreed to senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley’s suggestions that retrospective and social impact assessment clauses should not be applied for the acquisition of land for irrigation project, According to sources.
Similarly, both the BJP and the government have also inclined to accept to make it specify that either compensation or rehabilitation and resettlement (R&R) will be given to farmers whose land is acquired for irrigation projects. Seeking to correct the wrongs of its predecessor the Land Acquisition Act 1894, it rests on three main pillars: consent (through a well-defined and a compensation and resettlement.
The Bill also introduces a number of unprecedented and far reaching safeguards to protect an individual’s right to his or her personal property from arbitrary and indiscriminate acquisition.
The new Bill proposes that farmers and landowners be paid up to four times the market value for land acquired in rural areas, and two times the market value in urban areas.
Bureau Report
Leave a Reply