The Mamata Banerjee ministry will not accept government role in land acquisition for the private sector even under the private-public partnership model, except in “specific and limited situations”, sources said after a cabinet meeting this evening. A “final decision” on the state government’s position on the draft National Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill is still to be taken. Mamata asked the group of ministers led by Partha Chatterjee entrusted with...

-PTI   Over six lakh trees and some 1,800 betel vines will have to be sacrificed to set up Posco's Rs 52,000 crore mega steel project in Orissa's coastal Jagatsinghpur district. The trees to make way for the greenfield project include about three lakh casuarina and as many horticultural plants, official sources said. Local people have voiced strong opposition against the move to clear the trees, arguing that they will be exposed to...

The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government’s proposed land acquisition law, a politically sensitive and critical piece of legislation that could potentially remove a big roadblock to industrial investment, aims to address rehabilitation and resettlement (R&R), providing safeguards for both land owners and livelihood losers, while clearly defining the “public purpose” for which land can be acquired by the government. “This draft Bill seeks to balance the need for facilitating land acquisition...

The Union rural development ministry has retained in the draft of an amendment a partial government role in land acquisition for private investors, vetoing the diametrically conflicting views of Mamata Banerjee and a panel headed by Sonia Gandhi. The draft finalised by the ministry to amend the land acquisition act has stuck to the 70-30 formula under which the private investor is expected to buy at least 70 per cent of...

The episodes of violence in land acquisition by the government, as witnessed recently in Bhatta-Parsaul in Uttar Pradesh and in other states earlier, occur because patterns of violence are inbuilt into the process. Despite a bill pending in Parliament since 2007, there has been little effort by political parties to evolve a consensus on acquisition of agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes. The law as at present and also the provisions...