Trinamool against govt role in land acquisition

NEW DELHI: If the National Advisory Council's (NAC) recommendation -- to involve the government in all land acquisition -- is accepted by the Centre while formulating its Land Acquisition Bill, the UPA could face opposition from its biggest alliance partner Trinamool Congress.

However, West Bengal chief minister and TMC boss Mamata Banerjee is confident that her party's stand is known to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the Centre will take care to keep her concerns in mind while finalising the bill. On Sunday, Mamata is scheduled to meet finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, who will be in Kolkata. It is likely that the land bill will come up for discussion in the meeting.

Even as she has become chief minister of West Bengal, Mamata says her party is against government playing a role in "acquiring land from individual land owners without their consent" and the TMC election manifesto also mentions it.

Though Mamata is not against the state acquiring land, her main concern is that if government has 100% role in acquring land, then "consent of the landowner could even be ignored".

"Today I am in government and even I am not asking for this power," the chief minister said.

Reacting to reports on the NAC's recommendations, the Trinamool Congress chief said she could have kept silent on this issue but her party's view is opposed to such a move (100% acquisition of land by government), since it will hurt the interest of farmers. The CM feels it should be the farmers "prerogative to decide who he will sell his land to or how much of his land he will sell".

The draft of the land acquisition bill has been lying with the UPA government for a while and could not be passed because of Mamata's opposition whenever it came in the Cabinet. The PM was keen on bringing this bill at the earliest as land acquisition became a major issue after Tatas had to pull out of Singur in West Bengal following Mamata's agitation there.

In fact, Mamata is of the opinion that if the Centre brings a legislation which is in line with the NAC's recommendation, then she will have to formulate a separate land policy for West Bengal.

The CM feels the role of the government should only come in if there is a dispute between the seller and the buyer. In that case, the state should facilitate the process and help resolve it.

The land bill, which is expected to come up in the monsoon session of Parliament, may face rough weather if it does not incorporate views of all parties, especially the UPA partners.