Draft land acquisition rules next week: Jairam Ramesh

Top Stories

»	49% Indian startups now from tier 2, 3 cities: Jitendra Singh
»	'India ranks 3rd in global startup ecosystem & number of unicorns'
»	Tripura exported over 9K tonnes of pineapples in 2 years
»	CPI inflation eases to 6.71% in July, IIP falls to 12.3%
»	Rupee depreciates 12 paise to close at 79.64 against US dollar

SME Times News Bureau | 05 Oct, 2013
Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh Friday announced that the draft rules for Land Acquisition Act 2013 will be out next week.

"The draft rules, procedures and guidelines of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Resettlement and Rehabilitation Act 2013 will be placed in the public domain in the next week or so," said minister while speaking at the National Council meeting of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in New Delhi on Friday.

The Minister said that as earlier, a consultative and participative approach would be adopted in finalizing the rules, and comments and feedback on the Act would be invited for 45 days. The Act would be notified after finalization either on January 1, 2014 or April 1, 2014.

"We will work with industry in drafting the rules for the Act," he emphasized.

S Gopalakrishnan, President, CII complimented the Minister on bringing clarity to a complex issue. He further voiced the concerns of industry regarding possible procedural delays in implementation of the Land Bill at a time when growth rate was already subdued.

Stressing on the need for modernization of land records, he said, "Industry feels that that sections of the Act may need to be discussed at a later stage based on feedback on their implementation."

Ramesh responded that a permanent rules advisory committee, consisting of all stakeholders including land-owners, civil society and industry, was envisaged to review implementation of the law on a regular basis.

Tracing the need for the new Act, the Minister said that it was based on four main components viz. consent of land-owners, compensation, resettlement and rehabilitation (R&R) and procedures. The Act has laid out detailed sections in order to make land acquisition by Government transparent rather than open its provisions to interpretation and discretion.

Reassuring industry, he stated that time-lines for procedures were clearly delineated in the Act and penalties would be invited for any delays. Some procedures could run concurrently and would be completed in about 36-42 months.

He also announced that Government would shortly be completing mapping of land to identify wasteland and barren tracts through the National Remote Sensing Agency and would be making this information available for public use.

The Minister assured India Inc. that nothing in the law should discourage private sale and purchase of land.