GoM for greater Govt role in land acquisition

The Group of Ministers (GoM) overseeing the rehabilitation policy made further headway on the crucial issue of resettlement of people affected by land acquisition...

The Group of Ministers (GoM) overseeing the rehabilitation policy made further headway on the crucial issue of resettlement of people affected by land acquisition for industrial purposes. The GoM headed by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, which met on Thursday, looked into the issues related to the amendment of the Land Acquisition Act to align it with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s assurance of more “humane” rehab policies.

While the GoM was not in favour of the Government acquiring the entire land required for private industrial projects, highly placed sources said the majority of GoM members favoured increasing the proportion of land that the Government should acquire to facilitate private industrial projects in case of holdouts by few land owners in the project area. Sources said the GoM favoured increasing the present 10 per cent ceiling proposed by the Rural Development Ministry to 30 per cent of land, provided the rest 70 per cent of land was already purchased by the private industry.

They also confirmed that there was in-principle agreement among all members to minimise delay in projects due to extended civil court cases at the local level. The members agreed with the Rural Development Ministry’s proposal of creating a dispute settlement authority in each state for redressal of land owners’ concerns about acquisition.

However, keeping in view of the string of protests over land acquisition in Nandigram, the GoM agreed with the Ministry proposal of providing compensation at market rates to land owners whose land would be acquired by the Government. It was agreed that in case of land acquisition by the Government, the compensation paid to land owners should not be less than the average of top 50 per cent of the land sale deals in last three years or the minimum floor rates fixed by the state Government, whichever was higher.

Also to avoid any dispute over future sale of land by the private companies after land acquisition by the Government, the GoM agreed with the proposal which stipulated that the land acquired by the Government should revert back to origin land owners if the project failed to come up even five years after land acquisition. The private parties cannot such land to other parties. Additionally, in cases of sale of land to other parties after the project has taken off, the proposal also stipulated that 80 per cent of the net profit earned by the private developers should go to the original land owner.