New Delhi, July 24: The written consent of at least 80 per cent of the landowners will be mandatory for acquisition of plots for industry, according to a new draft for amending the law.
The 80 per cent threshold, proposed at a meeting today, goes beyond the 70 per cent suggested by the Sonia Gandhi-headed National Advisory Council (NAC).
The Land Acquisitions (Amendment) Bill is also expected to leave open-ended the quantum of land the government can acquire for an industrial project. No formula will be suggested, which means the government can acquire up to 100 per cent land or none at all.
This will remove a point of friction between the Centre and allies such as Mamata Banerjee who want no government role in acquisition. On the other hand, the NAC wants the government to acquire the entire land and hand it over to industry. Both views have been addressed in the draft.
Even if the bill had mentioned a formula, the operative word would have been “can”, which would have given state governments the leeway to take their own decisions.
“The state governments will decide whether they will acquire land for private industry or not. They can acquire zero per cent or 100 per cent of the land required for industry,” said N.C. Saxena, an NAC member who attended the meeting convened by rural development minister Jairam Ramesh.
“All the major contentious issues have been sorted out. We will meet once again to have a final look at the draft. Then the ministry will put it on its website and seek comments from the public,” Saxena told The Telegraph.
“The consent rule will empower farmers to veto any land acquisition (for industry) against their will,” he said.
No consent, however, will be required when the government acquires land for security projects. Nor will consent be technically mandatory for the government’s development projects such as hospitals, schools, roads or irrigation schemes, but it will need to hold consultations with the affected people.
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