Parliament panel on land bill to discuss key clauses tomorrow

NEW DELHI: With Government keen on buying peace over the land bill, a Parliamentary panel examining it will tomorrow try to evolve consensus on three key provisions including the one on return of unutilised land to its owners after five years.

The panel has already arrived at a unanimous agreement on six key issues, including bringing back the consent clause and social impact assessment in the proposed law and now aims at finalising its view on three other issues at the August 10 meeting. It plans to submit the report the very next day, sources in the committee said.

The government has also expressed readiness to accept the recommendations of the committee, which has restored some dropped provisions of the UPA law, but insisted it was not a climbdown as it was always open to changes on which there was a consensus.

The issues that will be on the table for the 30-member Joint Committee of Parliament headed by BJP MP S S Ahluwalia include the provision on returning unutilised land, time period for retrospective application for compensation under the new law and period of review.

Under UPA's land Act of 2013, the land acquired but not utilised for five years had to be returned to the original owners or the land bank.

The NDA bill, however, provided for return of the unutilised land after either five years or any period specified at the time of setting up of a project, whichever was later.

The amendment to section 113, according to which the power with the state to remove difficulties which might arise in giving effect to the provisions of the Act can only be exercised after a period of five years from the commencement of the Act, as opposed to a shorter period of two years under the 2013 Act, will also be taken up tomorrow.

Similarly, the UPA law stated the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 will continue to apply where an award has already been made. However, if such an award was made five years or more before the enactment of The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (LARR) Act, 2013 and physical possession of land had not been taken or compensation not been paid, the UPA law will apply.
The NDA bill prescribes that in calculating this time, any period during which the proceedings of acquisition were held up due to a stay order of a court, or a period specified in the award of a Tribunal for taking possession, or any period where possession has been taken but compensation is lying deposited in a court or any account, will not be counted.

It basically amended Section 24 (2) to exclude time spent under litigation where a stay order has been passed.

The issue of section 24 (2) was widely debated at the meeting of the panel on July 27. It is learnt that Secretary Land Resources Vandana Kumari Jena said in the meeting that states like Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Goa, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, and West Bengal, besides Chandigarh objected to section 24 (2) of the Act and wanted it modified.