Industry body Ficci has raised several objections to the proposed Land Acquisition Bill, including the rehabilitation and resettlement provisions, saying it is unreasonable and cost consuming.
It has urged the government to increase the threshold of 50 acres and 100 acres to 500 acres for the purpose of application of relief and rehabilitation provisions in the proposed Bill.
The Bill, which is expected to be tabled in Parliament in the current session, makes it mandatory to provide rehabilitation measures for any acquisition that is more than 50 acres in rural areas and 100 acres in urban areas.
In its latest submission before the Rural Development Ministry, FICCI has said the requirement of consent of 80 per cent of the project affected families was very high and needs to be lowered down to 50 per cent.
Elaborating on its recommendations, FICCI said the threshold of 100 acres was very low for projects, especially in rural areas, and this may only encourage smaller and fragmented holdings particularly in the mining sector. Hence, in the light of above, the threshold needs to be increased to at least 500 acres. The ministry on the other hand has, in a revision of the draft, further lowered the threshold to 50 acres in rural areas though the revised draft has not been released so far.
FICCI has sought flexibility in the ‘public purpose’ clause of the Bill in the event of investments becoming unviable due to policy-induced changes. The Bill says once the land is acquired for a stated public purpose, it cannot be changed under any circumstances.
FICCI said a provision in the Bill may be considered which provides flexibility to the industry to seek changes in the public purpose for valid reasons which arise as a result of policy-induced changes, so long as the benefits of the project continue to accrue to the public at large.