Chennai: Tamil Nadu on Wednesday asked the Centre not to go ahead with the new Land Acquisition Bill saying some of the provisions in it were “anti farmer” and would be a threat to food security. In her remarks at the meeting of Niti Aayog’s Governing Council, to which she had sent her printed speech to be taken on record as she could not make it due to “pressing official work”, Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa said her government has been consistent in its stance that land is a state subject
The state had held a consistent stand on the issue since the previous UPA Government introduced the Bill. The proposed amendments were unfortunate and undesirable. Land was a state subject under Entry 18 of List II of the Seventh Schedule. States were much closer to the people and hence the Constitution makers logically provided for state governments to deal with matters connected with land, Chief Minister J.Jayalalithaa said in a letter.
Even administratively, state government authorities dealt with all land records and it would be appropriate for the field to have been left to states alone to legislate.
A key feature of the amendment Bill was introduction of a new Section 10 A, which listed projects in defence and defence production, rural infrastructure including electrification, affordable housing and housing for the poor, industrial corridors, infrastructure and social infrastructure projects, including projects under public private partnership (PPP), where the ownership of the land continued to vest with the government.
Powers had been conferred on state to exempt such projects from the requirement of conducting “Social Impact Assessment (SIA)” and “Special Provisions for Safeguarding Food Security” as well as the requirement of obtaining “Consent” from a fixed percentage of affected families when land was acquired for PPP and private sector projects.The AIADMK party voted in favour of the Amendment Bill earlier, since the Centre accepted the suggestion of excluding acquisition for private hospitals and private educational institutions from the purview of the Amendment.
Farmers in the state strongly opposed the provisions, which empowered state governments to exempt specified projects from the application of chapter III of the Act.
Hence, these provisions in the Amendment Bill were unacceptable to the Tamil Nadu Government. “I urge the Government of India not to press these amendments,” the letter said.
