It has now been renamed as The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill.
The group of ministers set up to study the land acquisition bill has diluted the provisions of the proposed legislation to protect the states’ powers and concerns after there were differences within the cabinet over the original draft.
It has now been renamed as The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill.
Instead of fixing the compensation, the revised bill has only provided a baseline, leaving it to the states to decide on the final award, depending on distance from the urban centres and other factors. It has, however, left the room for the states to provide higher compensation and rehabilitation package.
The GoM has also decided to apply the law only to the new acquisitions made after the enactment of the legislation and not retrospectively. Also, the collector gets the power to exclude transactions that he feels are outliers and not indicative of the true value while calculating the market price.
Further, the revised Bill requires consent of only two-thirds of the land losers, though compensation and rehabilitation and resettlement will be given to both land losers and livelihood losers.
Defending the changes, rural development minister Jairam Ramesh said the states get large flexibility to fix compensation in rural areas between two to four times market value depending on the distance from urban areas as against the original bill which mandated compensation of four times the market value in the rural areas.
The new Bill ensures rehabilitation and resettlement of families of all farmers, landless and livelihood losers who resided in the area for five years or more with a house or one-time financial grant in lieu thereof. They will also be given an annuity of Rs 2,000 per month per family for 20 years, adjustable to inflation, or employment and if employment is not forthcoming, each family will get a one-time grant of Rs 5 lakh. They will also get a subsistence allowance of Rs 3,000 per month for a year.
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