Land Acquisition Bill Passed in Lok Sabha, Congress Walks Out

mangaloretoday.com/ NDTV

New Delhi, March 10:  Reforms that will make it easier to buy land have been passed by the Lok Sabha, where the Modi government has a big majority. The government moved nine amendments as it sought to break a political deadlock. Ally Shiv Sena abstained from voting, while the Congress, Trinamool Congress, Samajwadi Party, RJD and BJD walked out of the House.

 

Here are the latest developments in this story:

The Land Acquisition Amendment Bill will now go to Rajya Sabha, where the government is in a minority and will struggle to have it passed. It has been in close touch with regional parties like the Biju Janata Dal which walked out today. A similar walkout in the Rajya Sabha will help the government.

While ally Akali Dal was brought around, the other partner that had opposed certain provisions of the government’s land bill, the Shiv Sena, did not vote.

The Congress, which has said it will support no changes in the 2013 law its government brought without those being referred to a parliamentary committee, walked out just before the bill was voted on. The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) had walked out earlier.

The amendments proposed by the government today seek to placate critics who allege that its land reforms are "anti-farmer". It has incorporated not just changes suggested by other parties, but also factored in feedback from farmers’ organisations and activists who have opposed its land reforms.

The amendments include a dilution of the consent clause - the government’s land ordinance or emergency executive order that the bill seeks to ratify, exempted projects in defence, rural electrification, rural housing and industrial corridors from provisions of the 2013 law, requiring 80 percent of affected landowners to give their consent to a deal.

The other major sticking point for opponents of the ordinance, the scrapping of the need for companies to conduct a social impact study for such projects, has also been reviewed.

"Social Impact Assessment is left to the state government, if they want they may go with it," said Rural Development Minister Rao Birendra Singh in an intervention. Earlier while moving the bill, he had told the Opposition, "We are ready to accept your suggestions if those are in the interest of farmers."

It has also proposed amendments to ensure a better mechanism for the redressal of grievances of those whose land is acquired, and also one for providing employment to farm labour rendered jobless when land is acquired.

The government says the proposed land reforms balance the rights of farmers with the urgent need to provide land for projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Failure to pass the law in both houses would lead the executive order or ordinance, to lapse when the current session of Parliament ends.

That could open the way for PM Modi to convene a rare joint session of Parliament, where his coalition would have a majority on paper, to pass the land law. But BJP strategists caution that the joint session route could cause political friction to escalate both inside and outside Parliament.