Cabinet clears amended land purchase policy

The Land Aggregators will sell land to the government after getting it from the small land owners who have not shown interest in the land purchase policy of the government.

“This way the government will not have to acquire land by issuing notices. The department concerned which needs land will give advertisement in the newspapers giving details of how much land the department wants and invite land aggregators to arrange the land. The land purchase policy provides for purchase of land for government purposes through tendering and negotiations.

The urban development authorities at Ludhiana,Jalandhar,Amritsar and Patiala had invited tenders for purchase of land from land owners,but there was no satisfactory response due to certain shortcomings in the implementation of the policy as it was seen small land owners had not shown interest in the land purchase policy of the government.

It was felt that it was due to the lack of knowledge about the government procedures and less co-ordination amount the small land owners.

“Therefore the role of land aggregator becomes very important. Obviously some incentive or commission needs to be offered to him for performing his role,so two per cent commission will be paid by to him by the government as the government will also pay the land cost to the land owner,’’ states the document.

Justifying the appointment of Land Aggregator,the policy states that the cost of the land will be directly paid to the land owner.

It is fully hoped that under this amended land purchase policy the land will be acquired in the least possible time without any protests and legal hurdles thereby the overall benefit will be many times more than the extra expenditure of 2 per cent commission to be paid to the land aggregator.

Despite objections from the Finance and Revenue departments,this policy was today cleared by the Cabinet. It had been brought in the last Cabinet meeting,was discussed and sent back for further clarification.