NAC member accuses Ramesh of going back on his promise

National Advisory Council (NAC) member N C Saxena has accused rural development minister Jairam Ramesh of changing his stand on Land Acquisition and Relief and Rehabilitation Bill (LARR) under "pressure" and has suggested several changes in the draft law.

Updated on: Nov 23, 2011, 21:12:14 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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National Advisory Council (NAC) member N C Saxena has accused rural development minister Jairam Ramesh of changing his stand on Land Acquisition and Relief and Rehabilitation Bill (LARR) under "pressure" and has suggested several changes in the draft law.

"It appears that many new clauses have been added under pressure, which considerably dilute the benefits that were originally intended for affected people," Saxena, on whose recommendation forest clearance for aluminum mining in Lanjigarh was scrapped, said.

Ramesh, as environment minister, had appointed Saxena as head of the inquiry committee on mining for Vedanta Resources in Orissa. He had also taken up the issue of land acquisition in the NAC.

In a note to Ramesh, Saxena has sought changes in several provisions of the bill which, he believes, can be misused to deprive poor people of their rights and favour companies.

He wants deletion of chapter on temporary occupation of land saying the section allows the government to acquire land for a company against farmers’ wish, which is not intention of other sections of the bill.

"Companies are likely to misuse the powers given under this section, as they will first take land on temporary basis, and when it becomes totally unfit for cultivation then ask the collector to acquire it permanently," he said, terming the section as redundant.

The former member secretary of Planning Commission was of the view that freezing the compensation to twice of the registered or stamp value in rural areas will deprive the farmers from negotiating with the land acquiring agencies. "I suggest that the section should clearly state that twice the registered value is the minimum," he said, in his critique of the proposed draft.

Finding an inherent contradiction in the draft, Saxena said section 95 says that land not used within 10 years should be transferred to state government's land bank whereas section 93 stipulates no change in the land use for the purpose it was acquired. Saxena also wants a provision in the proposed law to protect interest of recorded tenants as in West Bengal and suggested that they should also be compensated like the land owners.

He has urged Ramesh to make the changes before his ministry submits the bill for Cabinet consideration. Ramesh has ruled out the possibility of introduction of the bill in winter session of Parliament.

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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