The standing committee on rural development, headed by BJP's Kalyan Singh, started discussing the policy and the amendment Bill today. Seven campaign groups will make presentations before the panel along with representatives from various sections of the society. The campaign groups are united in their opposition to the need to have a new set of draft Bills when an earlier Bill was prepared in consultation with civil society groups and had even been approved by the National Advisory Council led by Congress President Sonia Gandhi.
Medha Patkar, who will make a presentation on Wednesday, says that the new Bills go against the spirit of what was agreed upon in the earlier draft. "We want the Land Acquisition Act scrapped. It is an appendage of the colonial past when the British wanted to acquire land at any cost," says Patkar.
The CPI(M), the key supporter of the UPA government, feels the present draft will promote real estate business by private players. Its Politburo leader S R Pillai today made a presentation to the committee as a representative of the party's peasants' wing Kisan Sabha. According to the CPI(M): "The new policy states that the government can acquire up to 30 per cent of the land for a project only after the private party has been able to purchase 70 per cent of the required land.
This means the relief and rehabilitation policy is applicable only to the land acquired by the government. This will increase the cost of acquisition in this 30 per cent land as the relief and rehabilitation package is involved in it, while the rest of the land can be purchased at a lower rate."
According to a Politburo member, the CPI(M) wants the relief and rehabilitation policy to be applicable to both voluntary and involuntary displacement. It also wants that courts, instead of a government-appointed body, should decide on the disputes arising out of relief and rehabilitation packages. Some of the campaign groups also take the same line, like M V Vijayan of the Delhi Solidarity Group.
