Skip to main content

Land Bill on the Agenda as Joint House Panel to Meet on May 22

By

The Modi government's proposed land bill is coming back in the reckoning after being in cold storage for more than a year. The parliamentary joint panel reviewing the legislation will meet on May 22 to debate its social impact assessment, a bone of contention between the government and the Opposition.

"It is very much on the agenda. The goverment has never decided to withdraw the bill despite the fierce criticism against it," said a member of the joint committee on the land bill.

In the UPA-era land law, evry aquisition, regardless of size, would go through a social impact assessment. The assessment was aimed to determine the possible impact and benefits of the acquisition not just on land owners but other people living nearby. The assessment forms the basis for compensation.

After coming to power, the NDA offered exemptions to five types of projects from this social impact assessment and virtually took away the farmer's right of refusal to sell land for government projects.

This will be the second meeting of the land panel, headed now by BJP MP Ganesh Singh, this year Ironically, both meetings happened after the UP elections which the BJP swept and made Yogi Adityanath the CM.
In 2016, only two meetings were held in the entire year in a clear indication that the political leadership was not in a hurry to debate the contentious bill.
The panel has now started seeking comments from states on specific provisions of the social impact assessment.Earlier, many states identified this assessment as the single biggest roadblock to faster acquisition.

The panel has called the Congress-ruled Karnataka government and Delhi Development Authority, controlled by the Centre, to depose on the issue.

The UPA-era law was drastically altered in December 2014, followed by two subsequent ordinances in 2015, But as the Bihar election approached, Modi said in his Mann ki Baat address that the government would not push any more ordinances on the bill.

The UPA's land act was seen by critics as heavily loaded in favour of farmers while the NDA's proposed amendments were touted as pro-big business on which the BJP failed to convince even its own allies and affiliated organisations such as the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh and the Bharatiya Mazdoor sangh.

Hindustan Times New Delhi, 08th May 2017

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Household debt up, but India still lags emerging-market economies: RBI

By
  Although household debt in India is rising, driven by increased borrowing from the financial sector, it remains lower than in other emerging-market economies (EMEs), the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its Financial Stability Report. It added that non-housing retail loans, largely taken for consumption, accounted for 55 per cent of total household debt.As of December 2024, India’s household debt-to-gross domestic product ratio stood at 41.9 per cent. “...Non-housing retail loans, which are mostly used for consumption purposes, formed 54.9 per cent of total household debt as of March 2025 and 25.7 per cent of disposable income as of March 2024. Moreover, the share of these loans has been growing consistently over the years, and their growth has outpaced that of both housing loans and agriculture and business loans,” the RBI said in its report.Housing loans, by contrast, made up 29 per cent of household debt, and their growth has remained steady. However, disaggregated data sho...
Post a Comment
Read more

External spillovers likely to hit India's financial system: RBI report

By
  While India’s growth remains insulated from global headwinds mainly due to buoyant domestic demand, the domestic financial system could, however, be impacted by external spillovers, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its half yearly Financial Stability Report published on Monday.Furthermore, the rising global trade disputes and intensifying geopolitical hostilities could negatively impact the domestic growth outlook and reduce the demand for bank credit, which has decelerated sharply. “Moreover, it could also lead to increased risk aversion among investors and further corrections in domestic equity markets, which despite the recent correction, remain at the high end of their historical range,” the report said.It noted that there is some build-up of stress, primarily in financial markets, on account of global spillovers, which is reflected in the marginal rise in the financial system stress indicator, an indicator of the stress level in the financial system, compared to its p...
Post a Comment
Read more

Retail inflation cools to a six-year low of 2.82% in May on moderating food prices

By
  New Delhi: Retail inflation in India cooled to its lowest level in over six years in May, helped by a sharp moderation in food prices, according to provisional government data released Thursday.Consumer Price Index (CPI)-based inflation eased to 2.82% year-on-year, down from 3.16% in April and 4.8% in May last year, data from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) showed. This marks the fourth consecutive month of sub-4% inflation, the longest such streak in at least five years.The data comes just days after the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) Monetary Policy Committee cut the repo rate by 50 basis points to 5.5%, its third straight cut and a cumulative reduction of 100 basis points since the easing cycle began in February. The move signals a possible pivot from inflation control to supporting growth.Food inflation came in at just 0.99% in May, down from 1.78% in April and a sharp decline from 8.69% a year ago.A Mint poll of 15 economists had projected CPI ...
Post a Comment
Read more