The UPA Government has decided to reject the recommendations of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Land Acquisition and is planning to go ahead with its own proposal of fixing some percentage of land to be bought by a private party, sources said.The Parliamentary panel, in its recent report, had rejected the Government’s proposal that a certain portion of the project land — 70 per cent —be bought by a private player before the Government acquires the remaining land. Citing the Government proposal as “contradictory and impartial”, the panel had instead recommended complete acquisition by either a private party or the Government.Highly placed sources in the Rural Development Ministry said that the Government intends to rush with amendments to the Land Acquisition Act in the forthcoming Lok Sabha session.The panel’s recommendation that compensation be increased to families affected by land acquisition has also not gone well with the Government. The panel had recommended that the ‘highest price of sale deed’ in the last three years, and an additional 50 per cent of the said highest price, should be the criteria for assessing and determining the market value of the land.Instead, the Government is learnt to be sticking to its own formula of compensation that takes an ‘average of the top 50 per cent of the highest price sale deed’ in last three years as the criteria for assessing the market value. However, the Government is learnt to have accepted many of the minor suggestions of the panel. The Rural Development Ministry, after incorporating the accepted suggestions, has sent the revised amendment Bill to the Law Ministry.
