#dnaEdit: Retrograde move

There are two clear difficulties with the amendment that the government has made to the land acquisition act through an ordinance on Monday evening. First, the ordinance is not the best way of making changes in an important law. Secondly, the measure is a temporary one because the government has to get the amendment passed in Parliament within six months. Finance minister Arun Jaitley had indicated that the government would go in for a joint session of Parliament if need be, in order to pass the amendment. However, the ordinance route does not put the government on a firm footing. Private investors are not likely to rush to invest in infrastructural projects as long as a question mark hangs over their survivability. In hoping to inspire confidence among investors through the amendment, the government seems to be chasing shadows. The compulsions of the six-month-old Modi government to be seen as acting swiftly in kickstarting the sluggish economy are understandable. But ordinances will not be of much help in this matter. The sooner decision-makers in the government recognise this, the better it will be for the country.

Second, the other crucial issue with regard to the proposed amendment is the social impact assessment mandated by the land acquisition law as it exists in its present form. State governments, officials and captains of industry have expressed dismay over implementing the law as it exists now, and the enormous delays that it entails. Does the amendment now do away with the social assessment clause? Or does it — in any way — dilute the provision? 

Though the government statement on the amendment speaks about fast-tracking the process of acquiring land for public projects, it is not clear on the status of social impact assessment. The land acquisition law requires the consent of 70 per cent of the people in the community where the project is located and whose land is being acquired for public projects. The required figure for consent rises to 80 per cent in case of private sector acquisition of land. The consent clause is at the root of the new law, which in its elaborated form in the title, Right To Fair Compensation And Transparency In Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013. 

If the state and central governments are finding the consent clauses to be hurdles in the way of development, then they should have the courage to say so openly. There should be a public debate and Parliament should have a second look at it. But obliterating the consent requirement through subterfuge by calling it “fast-tracking” would be both undemocratic and politically dishonest. If a community or an individual refuses to part with land for a public project, then the government will have to find an alternative. The other way would be to explicitly state that when government acquires land for mines, roads, building a school or hospital, or for constructing defence installations, all that the people can ask for is fair compensation. But that they would not have the right to refuse to give up the land. 

The phrase, social impact assessment too, is vague. Does it assess environmental aspects of a project? Does it mean that if a proposed project disrupts community life, then the affected community can reject it? Will the individual, too, have the same rights as the community, or is the individual preference subordinated to the interests of the community? These might look inconvenient and abstract issues which politicians are prone to treat with contempt. The hard truth is that there can be no turning away from these troubling questions.