Telangana to make its own land law

Hyderabad: With the Centre’s land acquisition Bill stuck in Parliament due to lack of political consensus, the Telangana government has initiated the process to enact its own legislation. The Centre had recently asked states to frame their own land legislations with its backing to ensure that development activities were not hit due to the delay in getting the amended law passed in Parliament.

The TS government, which needs land for a slew of projects, plans to replace the term “land acquisition” with “land procurement” to avoid confrontation with farmers, land owners and other stake holders.

Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, who reviewed the issue with ministers and officials last Saturday, is learnt to have proposed several changes, stating that the term “land acquisition” sends out a wrong message and gives a wrong impression to farmers and land owners that the government would resort to “forcible acquisition,” which has been the root cause of confrontation.

Mr Rao has proposed to name the new TS legislation as the “Land Procurement Act”. He also suggested renaming land acquisition officers, who are special deputy collectors, as “land procuring officers”.