Deadlock on Land Bill is impacting rural development, Modi tells Chief Ministers
PM Narendra Modi interacts with the Punjab CM Prakash Singh Badal, Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis in New Delhi on Wedensday. (Photo: PTI)
New Delhi: The second governing council meeting of the Niti Aayog, presided over by PM Narendra Modi and held mainly to discuss the pending Land Bill, turned out to be a chastising experience for the government as all the nine Congress-ruled states boycotted it.
They opposed the “dilution” of provisions of the Land Acquisition Act of 2013 regarding the consent of farmers and exemption from social impact assessment. In fact, so vehement was the opposition, that Modi had to strike a conciliatory note. Though he said the logjam on the matter was seriously impacting the development process, the Prime Minister appealed to all states that political considerations should not come in the way of a solution that would facilitate the development of rural areas and greater prosperity for the farmers.
Mr Modi said the ordinance was brought in response to these development concerns of states, and also to ensure that farmers continued to receive their legitimate due. Hitting out at states which boycotted the meeting, finance minister Arun Jaitley, who briefed the media later, said that these states should introspect on whether their action was commensurate with the spirit of “cooperative federalism”. He said that the chief ministers of 16 states had attended the meeting. On Mr Naidu’s absence, the finance minister said the Andhra CM had called the PM to convey his inability to attend the meeting.
Notable among those present were Bihar CM Nitish Kumar and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal. Bihar CM Nitish Kumar demanded that the amended Land Bill be withdrawn in favour of the original law passed in 2013.
“The state government opposes any attempt to dilute, nullify or tamper with the letter and spirit of the 2013 Act in its original form,” Mr Kumar said. He added that “substitution of term ‘private company’ by term ‘private entity’, removal of the consent clause, exemption from the social impact assessment and special provisions for safeguarding food security in the process of land acquisition and relaxation in the time limit for return of the unutilised acquired land are not in public interest”.
The chief ministers present at the meeting raised the issue of allowing them the freedom of amending state laws on land acquisition in their respective Assemblies, which could be later cleared by the Centre. The main basis of the states’ argument was that due to the delay in acquiring land, the development process had been severely affected.
Mr Jaitley later said that though the CMs present at the meeting were all for arriving at a consensus on clearing the Bill, at the same time they said that the wait for a consensus could not be an endless one, and therefore if there was a roadblock then the states should be allowed to make amendments in their respective state laws.
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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