Six months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on August 31, 2015, conveyed to the nation in his monthly radio broadcast Mann Ki Baat that the contentious ordinance on land acquisition will not be
Six months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on August 31, 2015, conveyed to the nation in his monthly radio broadcast Mann Ki Baat that the contentious ordinance on land acquisition will not be repromulgated (it had lapsed on the aforementioned date), thus signalling that the government will stick to the UPA’s land law of 2013, the parliamentary panel formed by the NDA Government to discuss the ordinance is to meet on Monday to wind up the discussions on it.
The Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Second Amendment) Bill 2015, is scheduled to meet on March 14 (Monday) to complete the formalities on winding up the deliberations on the NDA’s 2015 ordinance, which had been promulgated in December 2014 to enforce its own land legislation.
Sources aware of the development said that once all the 11 BJP members of the Joint Parliamentary Panel during its August 3, 2015 meeting had agreed on bringing back the key provisions of the UPA’s 2013 land legislation — like the consent clause and social impact assessment — and later Mr Modi himself announced that the ordinance would not be repromulgated, the committee ceased to hold any significance.
Therefore, during the March 14 meeting, sources added, the joint Parliamentary panel headed by BJP MP S.S. Ahluwalia is likely to fine tune some of the clauses on which earlier there was no consensus between the Opposition and ruling party members.
In November last year, finance minister Arun Jaitley had hoped for “some consensus” on the legislation.
These clauses include the one on return of unutilised land to its owners after five years. If the consensus emergers on these remaining clauses, then this well could be the last meeting of the panel, which has already been given five extensions to submit its report on the key legislation.
