No land acquisition for PPP townships: Jairam Ramesh

Interview with Union Rural Development Minister

The new version of the government’s land acquisition Bill, rechristened as The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2011, has drawn criticism from several quarters, particularly civil society activists. Critics say the government has watered down the original Bill to make it more business-friendly. In an interview with Sreelatha Menon, Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh replies to the criticisms. Edited excerpts:

It’s felt even by industry that acquisition of land for all PPP (public-private partnership) projects under the present version of the Land Acquisition Bill could create more conflict and distrust...
Township development is not included in the definition of infrastructure. Hence, this Act cannot be invoked for acquiring land for township development under PPP.

The Bill has a sliding scale for compensation for land owners. It gives twice the market rate when the land is 50 km from a town. But in the earlier version of the Bill, all rural areas were promised four times the market rate. Why has the compensation amount been reduced?
There is no change in the multiplier factor. It’s actually two times the market value and with 100 per cent solatium, it becomes four times for rural areas (on sliding scale).

By the sliding scale, for land within 10 km, only the market rate is payable. It is 1.2 times the market rate for 10-20 km, 1.4 times for 20-30 km and two times for land 50 km from a city...
The multiplier of two (which, of course, becomes four with solatium) is now on a sliding scale of zero to two. Which means lands closer to urban areas (within 10 km) will not have multiplier, whereas the farway land will get two multiplier. The rationale is that circle rates for lands closer to urban centres are likely to be close to market value, when compared to lands situated in interior, where the circle rates are notoriously lower than the market value. However, in the case of land within the radiou of 10 km, with solatium at 100 per cent, the land owner will get two times the market value.

The new version of the Bill does not provide a grievance redressal authority. People would still have to take to the streets to get grievances resolved.
The Right to Grievance Redressal Bill, which is under the consideration of Parliament, is expected to provide institutional mechanisms for redressing grievances. Therefore, there is no necessity for every legislation to create its own grievance redressal machinery.

What kind of redressal mechanism is available in the Bill?
The Bill provides many forums for redressing grievances. They are rehabilitation and resettlement committee at project level under Section 41, state monitoring committee for rehabilitation and resettlement under Section 44 and land acquisition, and resettlement authority under Section 45.