LAND

C QI S I T I O N

U BILL

SHUBHAM PARSEKARPGDM2UNIVERSAL BUSINESS SCHOOL

What is Land Bill?Land Acquisition” literally means the acquisition of land for some public purpose by a government agency from individual landowners, as authorized by the law, after paying a government-fixed compensation to cover losses incurred by landowners from surrendering their land to the concerned government agency.

SIX FACTS OF LAND BILL The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and

Resettlement (Amendment) Bill, 2015 seeks to Amend the Act of 2013 (LARR Act, 2013).

The Bill creates five special categories of land use: 1. defence, 2. rural infrastructure, 3. affordable housing, 4. industrial corridors, and 5. infrastructure projects including Public Private Partnership (PPP).

The Bill exempts the five categories from provisions of the LARR Act, 2013 which requires the consent of 80 per cent of land owners to be obtained for private projects and that of 70 per cent of land owners for PPP projects.

The Bill allows exemption for projects in these five categories from requiring Social Impact Assessment be done to identify those affected and from the restrictions on the acquisition of irrigated multi-cropped land imposed by LARR Act 2013.

The Bill brings provisions for compensation, rehabilitation, and resettlement under other related Acts such as the National Highways Act and the Railways Act in consonance with the LARR Act.

The Bill changes acquisition of land for private companies mentioned in LARR Act, 2013 to acquisition for ‘private entities’. A private entity could include companies, corporations and non profit organisations.

The Purpose of Land BillAs per the Act, the union or state governments can acquire lands for its own use, hold and control, including for public sector undertakings and for "public purpose”.

For infrastructure projects as defined under the Act.Project for project affected families.Planned development or the improvement of village sites or any site in the urban areas.Project for residential purposes to the poor or landless or to persons residing in areas affected by natural calamities.

Dates & Government who Introduced Bill 1894- British Government

Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh moved the Bill renamed as “The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2012”.and got it passed in the year 2013 in the Indian Parliament.

2013- UPA Government (Came into force from 1-Jan-2014) The Right to Fair Compensations & Transparency in

Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation & Resettlement Act

2015-NDA Government (Not yet Pass by RajyaSabha)

PROCESS

EXAMPLE Land Acquisition (For Amaravati)

N Chandrababu Naidu (CM of Andhra Pradesh) started LAND POOLING SCHEME to build capital city for new A.P., for that he successfully acquired approx. 33,000 acres without much protest.

Those who doubt if farmers really stand to benefit from the scheme, which envisages by giving them back developed residential and commercial plots ranging from 900 to 1,700 square yards for every one acre of land surrendered.

 Farmers will further receive an annual compensation of Rs. 30,000 to 50,000 per acre — with a 10 per cent yearly increase —for a ten-year period.

The state government has even waived-off stamp duty and other taxes in the event of their selling these plots. “Some farmers have also sought income-tax relief on capital gains.

Each family will receive Rs 2,500 per month for 10 years or Rs 30,000 annually, “which is roughly what they would make from cultivating 3 acres,” the official added.

LAND AVAILABILITY AND REQUIREMENTSTotal land area with India : 2.9 Million square kilometres.

Of this: 1.62M square kilometres is in agriculture 0.66M square kilometres under forests

0.6M sq. kilometres for other uses.

The only way the development can take place and millions job created is by bringing agricultural land into use .

At the most, 10% of the agricultural land will be converted to use.(Resulting to 16 million hectares or 40 million acres.)

The amount of acquiring the aforementioned, would cost Rs.60 Lakh crores or more.

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1.Consent Clause UPA Government 2013 UPA version of the Act has a requirement of the prior consent of at

least 80 per cent of those affected families before acquiring land. For public-private-partnership projects (PPP), prior consent has to be of at least 70% of those affected families.

Change: NDA Government 2015   No longer any need to obtain prior consent.  National security or defence Rural infrastructure including electrification; Affordable housing for poor people; Industrial corridors Social infrastructure and PPP projects where government holds

the land, there is no longer any need to obtain prior consent.

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF CLAUSES PERTAINING TO LAND ACQUISITION AS PER 2013ACT AND 2015

2. The Compensation ClauseUPA Government 2013 Land acquired for 13 Acts of Parliament like the Railways Act, the Electricity Act,

the Atomic Energy Act, etc. Compensation will be fixed as per clause and cannot be changed.

Change: NDA Government 2015   Removed the underlined provision, 4 Times the market price. land Possession only after full compensation.

3. Time Limit Clause.UPA Government 2013 Acquired land unutilized for a period of five years from the date of taking over

the possession, the land shall be returned to the owners.Change : NDA Government 2015 Five year tenure changed to period specified for setting up any project. Period wasted in legal matters is not included in this timeframe.

4. Punishment clauseUPA Government 2013 Bureaucrats will be punished if found guilty of violating any clause of the

existing Land Act. Change: NDA Government 2015 However, the new clause makes government sanction necessary to prosecute

civil servants.