JOIN USUP elections propel land bill
Informed sources affirm the speculation, as the Congress, which believes it has high stakes in the next year’s poll in the northern state, hopes that the pro-people provisions in the proposed legislation will bring it dividends in the elections.
The assembly polls are scheduled for April-May, 2012, but there is an apprehension in political circles here that Chief Minister Mayawati may advance the elections. It is in this regard that the Congress-led UPA at the Centre is pushing for the Bill, which is likely to be passed during the winter session of Parliament, starting late November.
The Bill, which will be introduced at 12 noon in Lok Sabha on Wednesday by Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh, has the full backing of Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi.
The heir apparent of Congress party – who will don the lead role for the party in the state elections – was said to be particular that the Bill was introduced in the monsoon session so that it was passed in the winter session.
“Otherwise, it would not have been cleared by Cabinet just a couple of days before the end of the monsoon session,” sources told Deccan Herald here on Tuesday.
With Rahul in the background, it was Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who took the lead to clear the Bill at the Cabinet meeting. “As against the original proposal that compensation to the owner should be paid at the rate of six times of the market price, it was Singh who suggested that it should be brought down to four times. This was agreed to by the others at the meeting.
On some of the objections raised by some ministers at the meeting, the prime minister said these could be discussed by the Parliamentary standing committee, to which the Bill is likely to be referred on Wednesday.
Jairam Ramesh took adequate care to keep West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on his side as he met her on Monday – second time in a month – to discuss the issue. At the Cabinet meeting, interestingly, it was Dinesh Trivedi of Mamata’s Trinamool Congress who fully backed the Bill.
On the civil society criticism that the Cabinet has approved the Bill in a hurry, Ramesh, speaking to Deccan Herald, said it was not so. “There will be more consultations. I am again writing to chief ministers. There will be a meeting of the National Development Council (NDC) which will discuss the issue. The standing committee will also discuss it.
Anyone can approach the committee by sending their objections/suggestions as the panel will seek public opinion over it,” he said. Ramesh, soon after taking over his ministry in July, this year, had put up the draft Bill on the ministry website.
Some of the proposals of the Bill, passed by Cabinet, include: 80 per cent of project affected people should approve the land acquisition by government; maximum period that the acquired land can lie unused is 10 years; five per cent of irrigated land in a district is the maximum that can be acquired for industrial purpose while it stipulates timelines for paying compensation for the land acquired to the owner.