The Government plans to make changes to the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act before the Parliament session, a move expected to provide a new impetus to Rs60,000-crore worth of highway projects.
Several projects have failed to even reach the design stage and have been stuck after the land costs went up by over three times after enactment of the new law.The Ministry of Road, Transport and Highways has proposed that the agencies responsible for land procurement — primarily the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) — should be permitted to make an upfront payment to the property owner, which would include rehabilitation charges instead of providing alternative land compensation, as it could only lead to delays and unwanted litigation.
The land Acquisition Act has a provision, which says that the agency acquiring land should give alternate land and in case any built up property is acquired, then such alternative plots have to be offered for resettlement and rehabilitation (R&R).“We discussed (land Acquisition Act) with the States and after I have considered their suggestions I will take that to the Prime Minister we will go by his decision,” Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari said in an interview to a TV channel.
“Within 20 days... Before the Parliament session, we will come to conclusion because this is the issue which is related with the future development of this country,” Gadkari said when asked about the timeline of bringing the amendments.Gadkari said the problem in the road network is that projects worth Rs60,000 crore are stuck, as there are disputes in courts.“There are a lot of problems. Within one month, my target is to find out equilibrium. We don’t want to destroy our current contractors and construction of roads should happen as early as possible,” Gadkari said.
He added that his Ministry has already solved problems for the projects worth Rs20,000 crore already.Progress on many highway projects is laggard due to delay in land acquisition. Road Ministry has set a target of awarding 7,000 km worth of road projects during the financial year (2014-15), under the BOT (build, own, operate) and EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) models.
The Ministry which had set a target of awarding 9,000 km of projects in 2013-14 could award less than 2,000 km projects by the end of the period.