THE LAND ACQUISITION, REHABILITATION AND RESETTLEMENT BILL 2011
PREAMBLE
A Draft Bill to balance the need for facilitating land acquisition for industrialisation, development of essential infrastructure facilities and urbanisation, while at the same time to meaningfully address the concerns of farmers and those whose livelihoods are dependent on the land being acquired;
And to prevent the human and social suffering caused by involuntary displacement, by minimizing the displacement of affected persons and mitigating the adverse impacts on people and their habitats;
And comprehensively defining and identifying project affected persons/families to ensure that they are provided with a just compensation and rehabilitation and resettlement package, sensitive to the aspirations, culture, community, natural resource base and skill base of the affected people;
And ensuring a humane, participatory, informed, consultative and transparent process; and above all ensuring that the cumulative outcome of compulsory acquisition should be that affected persons become partners in development.
It is hereby enacted as follows:
1. Short title, Extent and Commencement:
(1) This Bill may be called the Land Acquisition Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill 2011.
(2) It extends to the whole of India except the state of Jammu and Kashmir. (3) It shall come into force on such date as the date notified by the Government in the Official Gazette which shall not be more than three months from the passage of the Bill by both houses of Parliament;
1A. Applicability of the Law:
(1)The provisions of this Act, shall apply in their entirety when:-
(a) the Appropriate Government acquires land for its own use, to hold and to control;
(b) Government acquires land with the ultimate intent to transfer it for the use of private companies for stated public purpose (including Public Private Partnership projects but not including national or state highway projects);
(c) the Appropriate Government acquires land for immediate and declared use by private companies for public purpose;
PROVIDED that the Public purpose for sub sections (b) and (c) above, once stated, cannot be changed.
PROVIDED FURTHER that Land Acquisition under sub sections (b) and (c) above can take place where at least 80 per cent of the affected families give their consent to the proposed acquisition.
(2) Only the provisions relating to rehabilitation and resettlement shall apply when:-
(a) Private companies purchase or acquire land, equal to or more than one hundred acres, on their own;
(b) a private company approaches the Appropriate Government for partial acquisition of an area so identified for a public purpose.
PROVIDED that where a private company seeks Government intervention for partial acquisition then the rehabilitation and resettlement entitlements shall be applicable for
the entire area identified for acquisition by the private company and not just the area for which the intervention is sought.
(3) All entitlements set forth in this Act shall be the absolute minimum to be guaranteed to those so entitled and no States shall in any manner limit or restrict the entitlements so enumerated.
PROVIDED nothing in this section shall prevent the States from enacting legislations or similar instruments having the force of law, to enhance or add to the entitlements enumerated in this Act.
Read More
Click here to Download the National Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2011
Usually the enhanced compensation awarded by courts is received by the dispossessed after more than 10 years. By then the value of land acquired would have increased several fold and the claimant would have died. Had the full value been received at the time of dispossession, it would have fetched cumulative returns even from bank deposits. Specific provisions may therefore be incorporated in the Proposed Bill, compensating for such delay and for bringing clarity to the mode of computation of compensation.
Therefore :
In Section 43 (2) of the draft Bill –
After the words – “award an amount calculated”- the words – “on yearly capitalised cumulative basis” shall be inserted.
In Section 43 (3) of the draft Bill –
After the words – “of the land as above provided” – the words and figures – “including Section 43(2)” shall be inserted.
In Sections 46 and 53 of the draft Bill –
Before the word – “interest”- the words “yearly compounded” shall be inserted wherever applicable.
After section 74 of the draft Bill, the following section shall be inserted, namely:—
75. Where a reference under Section 18 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 or an Execution Petition thereon, is pending at any stage or an award under Section 26 thereon remains unsettled at any stage under the Act, on the date of commencement of the NATIONAL LAND ACQUISITION AND REHABILITATION & RESETTLEMENT BILL, 2011, then the amount of compensation payable to the entitled person shall be determined on the basis of the provisions of the draft Bill.”.
Explanation. – In computing compensation payable under this sub-section, Sections 23(1), 23(1-A), 23(2), 28 & 34 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 shall be substituted respectively by Sections 43(1), 43(2), 43(3) , 46 & 53 of the NATIONAL LAND ACQUISITION AND REHABILITATION & RESETTLEMENT BILL, 2011.