Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 150
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 151
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181]
LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Land acquisition bill in monsoon session of Parliament will go a long way in addressing contentious issues by Prabhakar Sinha

Land acquisition bill in monsoon session of Parliament will go a long way in addressing contentious issues by Prabhakar Sinha

Share this article Share this article
published Published on Aug 19, 2011   modified Modified on Aug 19, 2011

Land is the most important ingredient for the development of real estate and infrastructure. For quite some time now, land acquisition had become a contentious issue in the country, which has threatened not only the industrial development but also planned growth of cities in the country. In this backdrop, the central government's decision to introduce a land acquisition bill in the monsoon session of Parliament will go a long way in addressing contentious issues involved in land acquisition.

The fate of a number of large infrastructure projects like integrated steel plants and other mining projects has been threatened because of the problems faced in acquiring land. The country has faced a lot of unrest during land acquisition owing to arbitrary fiats of various ministries and various agencies working at cross purposes. The recent agitation and court case against the land acquisition done by the Greater Noida Authority in Noida Extension for residential purpose has affected a large number of homebuyers.

This could have been avoided had there been clear guidelines to acquire land. Unrest in Greater Noida is mainly due to the lack of transparent and judicious guidelines to acquire land, says Anshuman Magazine, the managing director of global consultancy firm CB Richard Ellis, South Asia. If passed by the Parliament, the Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation and Resettlement (LARR) bill will be a watershed as it will bring land issues under a single unified regulatory governance, which has largely been a state matter, says Kaustuv Roy, the executive director of Cushman & Wakefield, India.

A national code of conduct in land acquisition will help public and private sector developers to resolve ambiguity in the method in which land is aggregated. "Also , we feel the benefit of this bill will be visible in the long term, when this will evolve to allow aggregation across the country, thereby increasing the scope of land availability for future development," Roy says. However, some experts say that the present draft bill has some lacunae. For example , the bill has suggested that multicrop land will not be acquired. But in the vicinity of a city, farmers will not mind selling their land because of the huge compensation they receive.

In Noida and Greater Noida, the total compensation that a farmer gets, including the value of the 7% of the acquired land he gets in the developed area, is around Rs 80 lakh per acre, provided he sells the land that he gets in the developed area. As against this, the total earnings of a farmer from one acre, where two to three crops can be produced in a year, is only Rs 40,000 per acre per annum , says Rajender Makora, who is the pradhan of Makora village in Greater Noida. Even the interest on the compensation amount of Rs 80 lakh will be Rs 6.40 lakh at the rate of 8% per annum.

Therefore, experts feel that what is required is that the government should allow the compensation amount of farmers to be deposited in a special fund, where they should be given a higher rate of interest of 12% per annum for the next 30 years.


The cost of additional rate of interest can be borne by the land acquiring agency. At the same time, out of the interest income on the compensation, Rs 1 lakh per annum per acre should be given to farmers to sustain their livelihood as against the annual income of Rs 40,000 from the same land. The government should make arrangements for better education and training of the villagers.

The money should be returned with interest to the farmers after 30 years. Magazine says that transparency in land acquisition is the need of the hour. A system has to be developed where nobody should feel cheated. But certain provisions in the draft bill will be difficult to implement. The draft bill proposed that upon every transfer of land within 10 years of the date of acquisition, 20% of the appreciated value shall be shared with the original owner, whose land has been acquired.

Let us assume that land is acquired for constructing condominiums. A buyer of the apartment in the condominium sells the apartment after three years and makes a profit. In this case, how will he share the profit with the original owner? This provision will create a lot of litigation and encourage black economy. Similarly, the increased role of developing agency for rehabilitation and resettlement (R&R ) will delay the project. "The counter side of the bill currently seems to be the fact that it loads up a lot of ancillary responsibilities, especially in the field of R&R on the developing agency.

This is likely to result in greater capital infusion from the developers' side into the project in excess of land cost, development cost and cost of construction and may also mean delays in actual commencement of work," Roy says. Instead of this, the government should have charged money from the acquiring agency and given the responsibility of its own body for the R&R.

However, the proposed draft bill is a welcome step and will go a long way for its holistic approach towards development of physical and civic infrastructure in support of the main development . The bill would necessarily need to clearly address the process of land acquisition and R&R to ensure that proposed development does not get affected by procedural hold-ups .

The Economic Times, 19 August, 2011, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/features/et-realty/land-acquisition-bill-in-monsoon-session-of-parliament-will-go-a-long-way-in-addressing-contentious-issues/a


Related Articles

 

Write Comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

Video Archives

Archives

Im4Change.org हिंदी वेबसाइट का परिचय. Short Video on im4change.org...

Im4Change.org हिंदी वेबसाइट का परिचय. Short Video on im4change.org...

"Session 1: Scope of IDEA and AgriStack" in Exploring...

"Session 2: Farmer Centric Digitalisation in Agriculture" in Exploring...

"Session 3: Future of Digitalisation in Agriculture" in Exploring...

Objectives | About Us | Workshops | Disclaimer
share on Facebook
Twitter
RSS
Feedback
Read Later

Contact Form

Please enter security code
      Close