Parl panel to debate sticking points on land bill after a year

THIS WILL BE THE SECOND MEETING OF THE LAND PANEL, HEADED NOW BY BJP MP GANESH SINGH, IN THIS YEAR

After being in the cold storage for more than a year, the Narendra Modi government’s land bill is possibly coming back in the reckoning.

The parliamentary joint panel, which is reviewing the legislation, will meet to debate the social impact assessment (SIA), one of the biggest bones of contention between the government and the Opposition.

“It is very much in the agenda. The government has never decided to withdraw the bill despite the fierce criticisms against it,” said a member of the joint committee on land bill.

In the UPA-era law, every acquisition, regardless of size, would go through a social impact assessment. The assessment was aimed to determine the possible impact and benefits of the acquisition not just on the land owners but other people living nearby. The SIA forms the basis for the compensation.

After coming to power, the NDA offered exemptions to five types of projects from this social impact assessment and also virtually took away the farmer’s right to refusal to sell land for government projects.

This will be the second meeting of the land panel, headed now by BJP MP Ganesh Singh, in this year. Ironically, both meetings have happened after the Uttar Pradesh assembly election in which BJP swept the state and Yogi Adityanath became CM.

In 2016, only two meetings were held in the entire year in a clear indication that the political leadership was not in a hurry to debate the contentious bill.

The panel has now started seeking comments from the states on the specific provision of the Social Impact Assessment. Earlier, many states had identified the SIA as the single biggest roadblock to faster acquisition.

The panel has called the Congress-ruled Karnataka government and Delhi Development Authority (DDA), controlled by the Centre, to depose on the SIA.

The UPA era bill was drastically altered in 2014 December followed by two subsequent ordinances in 2015. But as the Bihar election approached, Modi declared in the Mann ki Baat that the government will not push any more ordinances on the bill.