Admitting that the new land acquisition Act recently passed by Parliament would increase the economic cost of acquiring of land, Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh on Thursday tried to pacify the disgruntled industry by assuring that it would be part of the advisory panel to be set up soon to vet the draft rules and guidelines of the legislation.
“The draft rules of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act would be ready by September 30 to be followed by public comments for a month,” Ramesh said at an interactive session organised by FICCI.
Accepting a request from the FICCI, which had expressed its concern over the Bill, the Minister said, “An advisory committee will be set up shortly to vet the said rules in consultations with various stakeholders and others concerned.”
The Bill seeks to provide fair and just compensation to farmers and to those who lose livelihood on account of acquisition.Defending the new Bill, Ramesh said that it (the bill) will reduce conflicts arising out of land acquisitions and that it was a response to decades of injustice done to masses in the name of development.
“I would be the first one to agree with concerns that the procedure outlines in the Act would raise the financial cost of acquiring land. But in the medium, long and even the short-term, I expect that social cost associated with acquisition in terms of conflict and hiatus between land owners and land buyers would considerably diminish,” he said.
He said some of the concerns of the industry were valid that the procedures involved in land acquisition would delay the process. “But this would happen only if time lines mentioned in the Act were not kept,” Ramesh added.
However, he skipped a query of one of the participants at the session that payment of compensation that is four times the market value would multiply the price of the land available for purchase, and in turn trigger higher compensation and lead to a vicious circle.