Rahul pressed PM for current law relook in wake of UP farmers’ stir.
With tussles over land between industry and farmers on the rise, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has decided to bring the much-awaited Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill and the Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill in the next session of Parliament.
The first bill aims to restrict the government’s role in acquisition to only up to 33 per cent of the required land. Current law allows the state to acquire all the required land.
The assurance of Singh came at a meeting with Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi. The PM held an hour-long meeting with railway minister Mamata Banerjee just before meeting Gandhi. Banerjee is fiercely opposed to the proposed land bills and wants no government role in land acquisition.
“The Prime Minister has assured us that the land bill will come in the next session of Parliament,” Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh, who accompanied Gandhi in the meeting, told reporters.
However, Banerjee told reporters her meeting with the PM was purely on issues related to her state, West Bengal.
Rahul Gandhi and Digvijay Singh, who is also the general secretary in charge of Uttar Pradesh, met the PM in the wake of the agitation around Aligarh, where farmers are demanding higher compensation for land taken over for the Taj Expressway.
Gandhi told reporters after the meeting: “Land acquisition is becoming a major issue in the country. What I saw in Aligarh was extremely unfair. We need to have a look at the issue of land acquisition.”
The right for farmers to get back their land and total transparency in private buying of land are two changes Mamata Banerjee has been demanding to support to pass the contentious land acquisition amendments, awaiting Parliament’s approval for more than three years.
The Trinamool leader forced Congress president Sonia Gandhi to intervene and make the government withdraw the bill during the monsoon session of 2009. Her party, with 19 Mps, is the largest ally of the Congress.
The Trinamool leadership has resolved to oppose the bill if it doesn’t provide legal rights for the farmers to get back their land if an industrial projct doesn’t take off within the stipulated time. The bill, in its present form, allows the government to take back the land from private investors if it fails to start the industry or project within three years of acquisition.
