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Modi government to restore consent, social impact safeguards in land bill
-The Times of India

NEW DELHI: The Centre has proposed restoration of the provisions for "consent" and "social impact assessment" in the land acquisition bill, a climbdown aimed at wriggling out of the stalemate triggered by its bold attempt to liberalise the law resented by industry and which was seen to have slowed land acquisitions to a crawl.

It is learnt the Centre would undo most of the contentious changes it brought to the Land Acquisition Act that invited criticism that it was helping the corporates at the cost of farmers. The Centre's proposals are aimed at generating the widest possible consensus on the land bill currently before a joint committee of Parliament.

As per plans, the government would move to scratch Clause 3 and Clause 5 of the land ordinance. It would mean removing the exemption of five types of projects from the requirement of consent and SIA. The UPA law had provided for consent of 80% "affected families" for private projects and 70% of "affected" families for PPP projects.

The thinking in government seems to be that a non-controversial central act can leave room for states to decide on the specifics of exemptions in their local rules and laws.

SIA is the study to assess if acquisition is justified and its impact on infrastructural facilities on the displaced families.

At the same time, the Centre is likely to undo the change of "private companies" to "private entities", thereby laying down that the acquisition can only be for companies.

In contrast, the government may prefer to only partially restore the clause that laid down that land taken possession of but not utilized for five years be returned to the original owners.

While the BJP regime had amended the UPA's clause to give the option of "five years" or "a period specified for setting up of any project", whichever was later.

Now, it is learnt the Centre may change "the period specified for setting up of any project" to "for such other period as the appropriate Government may determine after recording the reasons" from the date of possession. The Centre, thus, may not limit the timeline to five years but add that the government undertake due diligence on time a project would need to get off the ground. Earlier, the provision gave the impression that the industry involved could give any timeline.

It appears that the government may do away with the penal clause altogether. While the UPA law had provided for stringent, automatic, cognizance of offences by officials, the NDA regime had amended it to state that authorities seek sanction for prosecution of officials under Section 197 of CrPC. Now it appears that it will be assumed that any offense will attract the normal proceedings under CrPC.

About the "retrospective clause", the Centre appears to be making a new suggestion. The UPA law that stated that if an award for acquisition had been made five years or more before the enactment of new Act but the possession of the land had not been taken or compensation had not been paid, then the proceedings of the earlier acquisition would lapse and fresh proceedings would start under the new Act.

While the NDA regime had earlier amended it to state that the five year period would not include the period under court stay or injunction, now it is veering around to specify that the court stay would include the period "on or before the date of commencement of the new Act".