 "Sangh affiliate Swadeshi Manch, CPI's Kisan Sabha slam land Bill")
In its presentation to the parliamentary joint committee on the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Bill, the manch said the amendments contained "several detestable and unacceptable sections". It demanded the government issue a white paper on the status of land acquisition since independence. It also asked the Centre to come out with a comprehensive land use policy instead of a piecemeal approach to the issue. The four-member SJM team led by its national convener Ashwani Mahajan, criticised the government for doing away with the consent clause and social impact assessment provisions of the 2013 Land Act. The SJM said the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government brought the ordinance to replace the 2013 Act in "undue hurry".
Other Sangh affiliates like the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh, Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh and Akhil Bharatiya Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram have criticised the government's amendments in their presentations in previous hearings of the committee. Of all the Sangh outfits, SJM's criticism is by far the most vociferous. The panel has so far recorded the personal appearance of 52 individuals and organisations out of 510 representations it received.
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In its eight-point representation, the manch said that agricultural and forest land should not be allowed to be acquired for any other purpose in the interest of food security of the nation and that the "government should not own the responsibility of acquiring land for the needs of private industries."
The SJM said the land use change must not be allowed from the purpose for which it was acquired and in case the beneficiary of the land acquisition fails to use the land within specified period, land should be returned to the original owners without applying any conditions.
It pointed out how social impact assessment (SIA) was an internationally-established practice, and is followed by such lending institutions as World Bank. It termed the doing away of the SIA "against natural justice". It opposed the dilution of the 2013 Act's clause that mandated that acquired land will return to the owner if unutilised for five years. The manch said that cultivable, arable and cultivating land is under serious "onslaught" from MNCs and corporates, who "with the help of governments, are accumulating and taking over more and more arable cultivable land from the poor farmers, who depend on the land for their livelihood and very existence."
The Kisan Sabha's Prabodh Kumar Panda and Atul Kumar Anjan also opposed the amendments in their presentation.