Govt to bring a law on land acquisition soon, says Pranab

The government on Tuesday assured Lok Sabha that the proposed Land Acquisition Act will be introduced in the house soon, after Lok Sabha MPs cutting across party lines sought new law curtailing government’s power to acquire farmland following farmers protest in Aligarh.

Updated on: Aug 17, 2010, 16:06:46 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan

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The government on Tuesday assured Lok Sabha that the proposed Land Acquisition Act will be introduced in the house soon, after Lok Sabha MPs cutting across party lines sought new law curtailing government’s power to acquire farmland following farmers protest in Aligarh.

“A comprehensive (land acquisition) bill is being considered by a Group of Ministers,” Finance Minister Pranab Mukerjee said, after MPs accused state governments of acquiring land from farmers forcefully for private project developers.

“This is an important issue. I don’t want farmers to be disturbed and their interests jeopardised.”

The issue was raised by Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav, who accused the UP government of not registering a case against those who had fired on “innocent” farmers. The BSP leader Dara Singh Chauhan denied the allegation and said a compromise has been worked out with the farmers.

But, this debate became a national issue as leaders from different parties said similar forcefully land acquisition of farmland was also been undertaken by other states such as Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.

Trinamool Congress, a UPA ally, made it clear that will oppose vesting any powers in hands of the government to acquire land. “Land should be acquired after mutual understanding which gurantees job for families of farmers. We are for a law totally for farmers interest,” party leader Sudip Bandhyopadhyay said.

Former Prime Minister Deva Gowda termed the acquisition as “loot by government for private builders” and demanded a debate on the issue. CPI(M) leader Basudeb Acharia, Pramod Panda of CPI and Lalu Prasad of RJD demanded quick action by the government to stop mandatory acquisition and have a proper rehabilitation package for farmers. “When I was the minister we had decided that only waste land would be acquired. Now, I don’t know what has happened to the policy,” Prasad said.

As soon as the house resumed business, MPs from Samajwadi Party and RJD rushed into the well of the house protesting against police firing on farmers in Aligarh, after which Speaker Meira Kumar allowed leaders of all parties to speak on the issue.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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