LAND OF THE LOST !

In 2013, the UPA government brought in the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, after consultations with all stakeholders. This Act made provision inter alia for obtaining the consent of the bulk of the farmers to be dispossessed, and a social impact assessment (SIA) to evaluate the loss to other stakeholders; it restricted the acquisition of multi-crop land and the ‘public purposes’ for acquisition; it specified that land acquired but remaining unutilised for a period of five years would be returned to the original owners; and it made officers infringing such a law liable to criminal action.

The new NDA government has through the revised 2015 Bill nullified most of these provisions. It has widened the areas where consent would not be required, including significantly industrial corridors and PPP projects, which in effect allows entry to non-government players; it has done away with the need for SIA for the exempted categories, which really means for every kind of project; it has opened up acquisition for not only companies registered under Section 3 of the Companies Act, but all kinds of private enterprises like proprietorship, partnership and corporations; it has removed the five year cap for returning acquired land which remains unutilised and extended it indefinitely; it has decreed that guilty officers cannot be prosecuted without previous sanction of government; it has eliminated restrictions on acquisition of multi-crop land; it has widened the definition of industrial corridors to include land up to a kilometre of the designated road or railway line; and it has dispensed with the Supreme Court directive that compensation be paid in court or in the beneficiary’s account.