SSB GD Topics : New Land Acquisition Bill - Good or Bad

 Critical Analysis of the Bill

Land Acquisition Is acquiring the land from the land owners by central or state government for development of infrastructure and growth of economy. Several controversies have arisen that the land owners have not been adequately compensated. On February 25, 2015 Birendra Singh Chaudhary, Rural development Minister of India introduced new Land Acquisition bill and Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Bill, 2015 in the LokSabha.

Earlier Land acquisition in India was governed by “The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act 2013”, which came into force from 1 January 2014.Till 2013, land acquisition in India, was governed by “Land Acquisition Act of 1894 ".

 Under the land acquisition bill in India the amount reimbursed for the land is fairly low as compare to the current index of prices in the economy.

There has been an increase in number of political and social protests against the acquisition of land by various industrialists in India. The protest has ranged from Bengal, Karnataka, and Uttar Pradesh in the recent past. Recently the acquisition of 997 acres of land by Tata motors in Bengal for the setup of a factory for the cheapest car in India I.e. Singur Tata Nano controversy was protested. Similarly, the Sardar Sarovar Dam project on the river Narmada was planned on acquired land, Later the project was canceled.

 Acquisition Act of 1894 allowed the government to acquire private lands.  On 31 December 2014, the new government in India i.e BJP passed an ordinance with official terms to "meet the twin objectives of farmer welfare; along with expeditiously meeting the strategic and developmental needs of the country". The new government passed Land Acquisition Amendment Bill in Lok Sabha on 10 March 2015.

The new government has brought certain changes in this bill recently. As per those changes, the infrastructure development on the acquired land won’t need 80% landowner’s consent. Another important change brought about in this bill is that the landowners will be given justified compensation where the government will be involved. Here's what has changed and what has been kept unchanged in the new land acquisition bill:

MERITS:

• Removal of consent clause and Social Impact Assessment: Previously, whenever the government acquired private land from individual or community owners, every project except those falling under five categories would be cleared only after receiving the Social Impact Assessment (SIA) Report and only after obtaining the consent of 70 per cent of the affected families in the case of Public Private Partnership (PPP) Projects and 80% of the families in the case of private company projects. In the new land acquisition bill the consent clause has been removed . So the government or private individuals/companies will no longer need mandatory 80% consent for land acquisition. The mandatory "consent" clause and Social Impact Assessment (SIA) will not be applicable if the land is acquired for national security, for defence and defence production, rural infrastructure including rural electrification, affordable housing and housing for the poor.

• Modi Sarkar will pay higher compensations for the land acquired by the government.

• As per the changes brought in the ordinance, multi-crop irrigated land can also be acquired for these purposes.

• Modi Sarkar is bringing these amendments to give a boost to industry and manufacturing.

DEMERITS:

• Millions of hectares of agricultural land, forest land and tribal land will be diverted for industrial, manufacturing and ‘development’ purposes.

• Nearly 60 million people have been displaced and affected by this project.

Why the government did passed the ordinance now?

The government is looking to boost up manufacturing to make Modi's ambitious Make in India project a reality and this is a big bold step towards it.

The major issues in the Land Acquisition Bill are as follows:

1) Private firm take advantage of government acquisition.

2) Displaced people are being compensated and rehabilitated inadequately.

3) Affected section has no representative and no resources of fighting for their rights.

4) There is no democratic or public involvement in the decision-making procedure and almost everything is controlled by government officials thus the transparency in the procedure is questioned.

This new Land acquisition Bill 2015 will not take people out of poverty, but will push them more into it. The land losers would become laborers when the supply is more than demand. Also we have not realized that as more and more land gets converted to non-agriculture the agriculture output will drop and India will have to import food. This will have an increase in the price of food. Please share your views on this topic in the comment section of the blog and keep following us for regular updates, important GD and lecturette topics.

  

About the author: Sunil Sahu is an electronics and telecommunication engineer and a die heart defense aspirant. He loves cooking and has a vast knowledge about cars and their latest developments. Through this article he wants to help defense aspirants by presenting his critical views on the topic, on the forum so that collective exchange of thoughts can take place.