Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has asked members of the ministerial panel to expeditiously clear the land acquisition bill, showing urgency on the legislation that is part of the core Congress agenda but has been held up for three years because of in-house differences.
The bill was referred to a group of ministers after the Cabinet erupted over its key provisions, with ministers handling economic and infrastructure wings arguing that high compensation would make projects unviable while stringent norms of acquisition would discourage industrialization and urbanization.
While the panel headed by Sharad Pawar will vet the legislation, the PM’s intervention is aimed at ensuring there is no further delay in clearing the bill. The GoM comprises A K Antony, P Chidambaram, Jaipal Reddy, Kamal Nath, Anand Sharma, C P Joshi, Kumari Selja, Mukul Wasnik, Salman Khurshid, Kishore Chandra Deo, Jairam Ramesh, Montek Singh Ahluwalia and V Narayanasamy.
The panel is split with Pawar, Nath and Sharma pitching for easier norms on the grounds that industrial development would come to a halt if some of the provisions of the bill were implemented. At the same time, Ramesh, Antony, Deo, Wasnik and Reddy are in favour of pro-farmer provisions.
The contentious demands include exemption to SEZs from the purview of the bill that prescribes higher compensation and adherence to norms like consent of 80% landowners.
But rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has come out against dilution of the bill, terming the provisions dubbed as inviolable as "basic framework of the Constitution".
In a chat with TOI on September 9, he chided the hostile ministers by saying, "They are ministers because of the Congress party and not the other way round."
The newfound Congress aggression on reforms to soothe investor sentiment, as evident in Trinamool Congress exiting UPA, seems to have tilted the equation in favour of the industry.
Ahead of the GoM’s first meeting on September 27, Ramesh reiterated that provisions relating to R&R, compensation and consent of landowners could not be tampered with.
He told TOI, "The LA bill is an initiative of the government based on the political agenda of Congress. Like RTI and MGNREGA were political pledges that fructified, the land bill too is in the same category."
He argued that seven investor-friendly changes had already been made to address the PM’s concerns on the draft. "We even dropped the consent of livelihood-owners for acquisition and the bill would come into effect prospectively," he said.