The draft bill does not take into consideration the problems of people who will be displaced
It is hoped that the revised version of the National Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation & Resettlement Bill, 2011, will make the process of land acquisition by the respective governments easy. The primary aim of the draft bill is to address the concerns of displaced families and provide them adequate compensation and facilities to soften the blow that comes with forceful acquisition.
However, even in its newest revised form, the bill continues to retain several aspects of the Land Acquisition Act of 1894, the most prominent of which is the elaborate acquisition process. The process of land acquisition has now been made even more elaborate in the current version of the bill with the introduction of a Social Impact Assessment Study.
On the ground level, the elaborate process of acquisition under the existing act and the concerned people's right to raise objections, has meant that the process often stretches to around five years on average. In view of this, the government finds it easier to invoke the urgency provisions and acquire land under provisions of the existing Act.
Considering that the new and revised version of the bill has made the acquisition process more elaborate, and at the same time has curtailed the conditions under which the urgency provisions can be used, the government will be left in a quagmire. It will neither be able to hasten the process of acquisition through the normal process of acquisition nor trigger the urgency provisions in most cases. Therefore, it could result in a long-drawn acquisition process. The undue lengthening of the process will have a severely debilitating effect on sectors that need land.
Furthermore, whereas the new bill contemplates adequate provisions for just compensation and infrastructural facilities for displaced families, it does not consider the fact that for many of these people agriculture is a means of life and that they may not have other skills to earn a living once their land is taken away from them.
The bill does not make any provisions for any form of skills development for the displaced who have not other means to to sustain themselves after losing their land.
Some training would definitely help reduce income disparity among the landed and the displaced, thus reducing social tensions.
For the effective implementation of the bill, the government and those associated with administration and enforcing it should come together to recognise the issues and hurdles in land acquisition at the ground level. They should accordingly come up with solutions that take into consideration the problems of the displaced and of those for whom the land is to be acquired.
