Niti Aayog meet: States for amending Land Acquisition Act

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday said that the Chief Ministers, who attended the second meeting of the governing council of NITI Aayog, have communicated that the Land Acquisition Act needs to be amended.

The meeting was chaired was Prime Minister Narendra Modi wherein consultations were held on how most states were not able to implement the Land Acquisition Act passed by the previous government.

"The Prime Minister talked about how most states were not able to implement the Land Acquisition Act passed by the previous government. The common view raised by many states was that the Land Acquisition Act needs to be amended. Land is needed for development and there were no two views about that," he told the media here.

The Finance Minster stressed that the development of states has been stalled due to the land concerns.

"Many Chief Ministers stated that the delay in implementing land acquisitions slowed down the projects. The general thought was that the Centre should try and get a consensus on this. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's concluding thought was that the concerns of all the states will be kept in mind," Jaitley said.

"But the Chief Ministers added that they cannot at the same time wait indefinitely for a consensus. If the Centre cannot manage to get the consensus then the states should be given flexibility to develop their own law regarding the land acquisitions," he added.