Haryana Finance Minister Abhimanyu today denied allegations that BJP government in the state has slashed the rates of compensation for land acquisition.
Abhimanyu said the government has in fact constituted a new committee of senior officials on February 15 to go into the issue and others pertaining to the drafting of rules afresh.
As per an official statement released here, Abhimanyu said the previous UPA government had enacted the Land Acquisition Act 2013, and it had issued a notification for framing the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement by amending the Land Acquisition Act 1894, on 27 September, 2013.
He said legal opinion of Haryana Law Department was sought on February 5, 2014 to complete the action taken under the Land Acquisition Act, 2013.
"The then Chief Minister directed setting up of a committee to frame rules under the new Act on 06.05.2014. The then state government constituted a committee under the chairmanship of Additional Chief Secretary on 14.05.2014. The committee presented its report on 23.07.2014," the statement said.
The rules framed by the committee were reviewed by the Financial Commissioner, Revenue and then Chief Minister approved the draft rules in which Urban Rural Multiplication Factor was one and gave his approval on July 28, 2014 to present the rules before cabinet, it said.
"It was approved as such in the cabinet meeting chaired by the then Chief Minister Mr Hooda and the notification on the draft rules was notified on 14.08.2014," Abhimanyu said as per the official statement.
He added that merely because the notification was printed when the Congress had demurred office does not make it a BJP government decision.
Refuting certain allegations levelled by AAP leader Yogendra Yadav, Abhimanyu asked if the former could deny the fact that the matter relating to the multiplication factor and the rules never came up before the BJP ruled state cabinet?
"Can Yadav deny the fact that Hooda approved the proposal to decide the multiplication factor before the cabinet meeting and after the cabinet meeting again to implement the decision?" he asked and called Yadav's act a demonstration of selective amnesia, the statement said.
