Eminent domain, land acquistion, and ordinance

[BeeAndButterfly]

[h=1]The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013
[/h]The bill inflates the cost of land to help a small minority of Indians at the cost of the vast majority of Indian citizens, as less than 10% of Indian population owns rural or urban land.,[SUP][18][/SUP][SUP][30][/SUP] The LARR Bill 2011 favours a privileged minority of land owners as the Bill mandates above market prices for their land plus an expensive rehabilitation package. The Bill does not mandate a process by which the time involved in land acquisition is reduced from current levels of years. Nor does the Bill consider the effect of excessive costs upfront, and expensive rehabilitation mandate over time, on the financial feasibility of large-scale, socially necessary infrastructure projects needed by 90%+ of Indians who are not landowners. In an editorial, Vidya Bala writes that the most important weakness in the Bill is bringing non-government transactions too under its purview. Private players buying 50+ acres of urban land tracts or 100+ acres of rural areas would be required to comply with the R&R package stated in the Bill.[SUP][31][/SUP]


Ordinance
The government has amended Section 10(A) of the Act to expand sectors where assessment and consent will not be required. For five sectors, the consent clause has been removed. So the government or private individuals/companies will no longer need mandatory 80% consent for land acquisition in those five sectors. According to Arun Jaitley, the mandatory "consent" clause and Social Impact Assessment (SIA) will not be applicable if the land is acquired for national security, defence, rural infrastructure including electrification, industrial corridors and housing for the poor including PPP where ownership of land continues to be vested with the government.


Jaitley said that rehabilitation and resettlement packages will be available as per the new Land Acquisition act. What Jaitley didn't mention was that by omitting the social assessment part, the government in essence has got away with a very important hurdle. In the earlier law, the assessment was meant to find out how many people will be impacted. So apart from the land owner, all those who are dependent on the land also needed to be compensated. But the new ordinance ensures that only land owners will be compensated.

Also whether the land is fertile or not will also not be taken into consideration while acquiring it for these five specific sectors. Thus even if the land is extremely fertile like it was the case in Singur, it can be acquired if it fits the criterion of these five sectors, no question asked.


The government has balanced out the ordinance by including 13 so far excluded Acts under the Land Acquisition Act. It is hailed as a pro-farmer move as with this decision, rehabilitation, resettlement and compensation provisions will be applicable for the 13 existing central pieces of legislation. Till now land could be acquired under these Acts and there was no uniform central policy of rehabilitation and resettlement.

These Acts include the Coal Bearing Areas Acquisition and Development Act 1957, the National Highways Act 1956, Land Acquisition (Mines) Act 1885, Atomic Energy Act 1962, the Indian Tramways Act 1886, the Railways Act 1989, the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act 1958, the Petroleum and Minerals Pipelines (Acquisition of Right of User in Land) Act 1962 and the Damodar Valley Corporation Act 1948. The Electricity Act 2003, Requisitioning and Acquisition of Immovable Property Act 1952, the Resettlement of Displaced Persons (Land Acquisition) Act 1948 and the Metro Railways (Construction of Works) Act 1978 are also brought under its purview to provide higher compensation, rehabilitation and resettlement benefits to farmers whose land is being acquired.



Congress's opposition
Congress has strongly opposed the ordinance saying anybody who is pro-farmer should raise their voice against it. But according to an Indian Express report, Haryana and Kerala wanted to remove the consent clause for PPP or bring it upto 50%. States like Assam, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh felt that the definition of affected family is too broad.

On social impact assessment, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra and Manipur all demanded that the process be restricted to only large projects.

Other opposition parties like JD(U), Left and AAP have strongly expressed their reservation about the ordinance.

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Is the Ram-Lila maidan nautanki only a vote gathering exercise? If not, post specifics on the Cong + allies (AAP/TMC/CPM) POV.

[BeeAndButterfly]

Jaggi's well articulated article on the topic
http://www.firstpost.com/business/why-politicians-want-upas-land-acquisition-act-to-remain-theyre-all-landlords-2118403.html

First, all politicians love the UPA version of the law for the simple reason that if land acquisition becomes tougher, middlemen and landlords will benefit from the resultant scarcity. Most rural politicians are big landlords, and they will gain the most if businessmen have to kowtow to them to buy land. Land aggregators, village officials and other middlemen will benefit from graft if the process of acquisition is made difficult through the need for 70/80 percent consent and Social Impact Assessment studies. It has been estimated that acquiring a large parcel of land under the UPA Act would take four to five years ? enough time to make any project unviable as all cost assumptions go for a toss.

.....

Sixth, the UPA Act?s provision for the return of land in case it is not developed five years after acquisition makes no sense. This is like asking you to sell your house if you have not lived in it for some time. What I do with what I have bought is my business, not the seller?s. Moreover, the prices of land don?t stay still. No landowner can hope to get the land back at the same price he sold it for. The idea of returning land is not only daft, but unimplementable in practice. The NDA version thankfully ends this nonsense.

.....

[boca]

Posted this elsewhere....now it has a home.

So I read that BJP modified UPA's version to create the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Ordinance, 2014.

Of interest is the modification to the below:
[QUOTE]In the principal Act, in section 2 ?
(i) in sub-section (1), in clause (b), in sub-clause (i), the words ?private hospitals; private educational institutions and? shall be omitted.

Curious as to what this section 2(1)(b)(i) is about, from the UPA act of 2013.

It relates to land acquisition by the government and specifically excludes "for the purpose of private hospital, private educational institution, and private hotel".

BJP seems to have knocked out "private hospital" and "private educational institution".

Why should the government be allowed to acquire land for a private hospital or a private educational institution?

[boca]

Is the Ram-Lila maidan nautanki only a vote gathering exercise? If not, post specifics on the Cong + allies (AAP/TMC/CPM) POV.

If the government sees a need for amending the existing bill, the onus is on the government to provide the rationale.

Okay, since you asked, don't know if it is someone else' point of view, but after reading the amendment, what is the rationale for BJP to state that if any government official is suspected of breaking the law, only the government could approve an investigation? Not even the court can suo-moto request an investigation, per the amendment, forget any PIL. To me, it shows the difference in commitment for accountability between the present government and the prior one. The prior one and their bill didn't restrict the courts from acting, either on its own, or in response to PIL. With the lack in faith of the government acting on complaints, the public is left with no other choice, per the amendment. We all know how the government (this one and prior) moved with the black money investigation, but for the court intervention.

[boca]

For the purpose of "industrial corridor", prior to amended ordinance, it required prior-consent from affected parties who own the land. The amended ordinance throws that requirement out. Government doesn't need consent, nor explanation.

Facts (from government):

40% of those displaced are tribals.
Considering the total displaced against the total tribal population, 1 in 10 tribal has been displaced due to development over a period of time.
75% of the displaced are still awaiting rehabilitation.

From no consent (prior to UPA bill) to consent (UPA bill), back to no consent (BJP amendment), looks like a regression. With the amendment, there is no need for any social impact assessment for industrial corridors. Who cares about the social impact for the displaced?

[boca]

On being democratic...

The UPA act was reviewed prior to passage by the parliamentary standing committees headed by BJP leaders then.

The NDA/BJP amendment ordinance? No such reviews. Comes across as authoritarian, not democratic.

The very issue of using ordinance was opposed by BJP then as undemocratic. What changed after coming to power, other than power corrupts?

[Sarkar07]

Congress's opposition
Congress has strongly opposed the ordinance saying anybody who is pro-farmer should raise their voice against it. But according to an Indian Express report, Haryana and Kerala wanted to remove the consent clause for PPP or bring it upto 50%. States like Assam, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh felt that the definition of affected family is too broad.

On social impact assessment, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra and Manipur all demanded that the process be restricted to only large projects.

So the Congress-ruled states (at the time when Modi govt solicited feedback) supported diluting the Land Acquisition Act - 2013, but now are raising hell over the Ordinance that gave them their wishes. Deja vu all over again. :) Reminds me of how BJP-ruled states were OPPOSED to auctioning coal blocks and wanted them to be allocated instead. And then when UPA did just that, BJP went to town on how the UPA was responsible for the "Mother of all scams" by NOT auctioning the coal blocks (conveniently forgetting that even NDA-1 itself also had NOT auctioned coal blocks). :)

Is the Ram-Lila maidan nautanki only a vote gathering exercise? If not, post specifics on the Cong + allies (AAP/TMC/CPM) POV.

I think it is all Nautanki to vent their frustration against NDA/BJP. The obstructionist behavior that BJP followed when they were in opposition is coming back to haunt them (BJP opposed pretty much every UPA policy which they themselves are following now - ironically they even opposed the much more farmer-friendly Land acquisition 2013 bill by calling it "anti-farmer". :) ) . They burned a lot of bridges when in opposition. Plus after coming to power they have treated their own allies like SS and SAD shabbily and with a lot of arrogance. So even the NDA allies are against BJP now. This is an opportunity for the opposing parties and disgruntled allied to get back at BJP and they are doing that. Politics as usual.

I doubt the Anna movement this time will have much following - as the "middle-class" does not see anything in it for itself. Personally I think that they will figure out a way to settle this by giving every opposing party something. Most likely it will be some back-room deals with the allies to buy their support (a cabinet seat or better ministry at the state or central level for example) and some actual changes to the bill to placate the Congress, JD(U), et al.

[boca]

Here is the infamous u-turn, well documented...

The amended ordinance removed the limit on non-use of acquired land from 5 years to forever, viz., in the 2013 act, if after acquiring land for a specific purpose, if the project doesn't start within 5 years, the land would be returned to the owners from whom it was purchased.

Earlier, UPA's draft bill had it at 10 years. The then BJP leader, in their opinion on the review of the bill (documented in Parliament), wanted that period to be 5 years, instead of 10 years.

Essentially, during opposition, they wanted the unused land to be released if not used within 5 years. They didn't like the government holding it for 10 years (per UPA bill draft).

Now, they want to do away with that restriction and want the government to hold on to the land for ever, even if the intended purpose doesn't materialize.

What changed between May 2012 and now?

[BeeAndButterfly]

More on the infamous social impact assessment (SIA)

Thus, the government, which was receiving flak from a few quarters for not being bold enough to take tough reforms measures, promulgated the Ordinance to do away with the consent and SIA clauses for sectors, which essentially cover all areas needing land for genuine industrial and urban development activities.


The main thrust of the ordinance is in the amendment of Section 10(A) of the act to expand sectors where SIA and consent will not be required. For five sectors, the consent clause has been removed, which makes government or private companies exempt from mandatory 70 and 80 per cent consent respectively for land acquisition. So, the mandatory consent clause and SIA will not be applicable if the land is acquired for national security, defence, rural infrastructure, including electrification, industrial corridors and housing for the poor, including PPP where ownership of land continues to be vested with the government.


Incidentally, the SIA sought to find out how many people will be impacted on account of acquisition of land. With the amendment, the agency acquiring land will have to compensate and resettle only the land owner and all those eking out their livelihoods from the land in question would now be out of the ambit of the law.


Furthermore, the distinction of land being fertile or not will also not be an issue any longer and if any agency working in any of these five specific sectors find even a fertile land necessary for a project there will be no roadblock. While the enactment of the Land Act had mandated the government to correspondingly amend various other laws with respect to the land acquisition, the ordinance consequently has brought in 13 so far excluded acts under the ambit of the law, which are the Coal Bearing Areas Acquisition and Development Act 1957, the National Highways Act 1956, Land Acquisition (Mines) Act 1885, Atomic Energy Act 1962, the Indian Tramways Act 1886, the Railways Act 1989, the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act 1958, the Petroleum and Minerals Pipelines (Acquisition of Right of User in Land) Act 1962 and the Damodar Valley Corporation Act 1948 and so on.


So, the segment of the affordable housing along with road and the rural electrification and transmission lines too have become beneficiaries of the change in the law. The government is seeking to attract investment in the power sector where major spending is likely on development of the transmission lines.


Union rural development minister Birender Singh defended the ordinance, saying that farmers’ interests have been protected as “none of the clauses relating to compensation, relief and rehabilitation have been removed”. He rightly stated so, because provisions relating to compensation, relief and rehabilitation have been left untouched in the ordinance, which are largely political in nature and the industry was not much worried about.

Link

[Sarkar07]

A lot of the farming land in India is owned not by the farmer himself but somebody else who does not work on the farm. (Think how many of us or our friends own land in their native place that is given to others to cultivate). The NDA bill removes the requirement for the social impact assessment - basically that means that the landless laborers who work on the land, do not get a penny and lose their livelihood. But the land-owner, likely gets 4 times the market value and much faster. The UPA version would have mandated payment or other compensation (like a job in the industry to be set up) to the landless laborer too (as he is impacted too) and therefore delayed the sale. That is one reason why this Ordinance is perceived to be anti-poor.