Acquiring land simplified

Collectors have been given power to hand over the land to even the water board and panchayats. Committees will be set up at the district level to decide on the rate at which the land should be acquired.

A state-level committee will monitor the work of the ones at district level.The civic bodies will be given possession of the land they seek immediately, but they can make payment after the district committee has fixed a price and it is cleared by the government.

Transfer of possession, too, will be done after the file is cleared by the government.

Sources said that land acquisition was a major headache for civic bodies as clearance takes more than two years.For instance, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation AMC had in 1992 sent a proposal for land acquisition for a drainage project being implemented with funds from the World Bank. However, in the two years it took for the files to be cleared, the grant was withdrawn.

The immediate benefit for AMC will be a speeding up of the Sabarmati river cleaning project and the Sabarmati Riverfront Development Project.

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