There is absolutely no urgency to enact the land acquisition legislation in a
hurry . In its present form the old and new enactments have infinite potent for
misuse, similar to the powers of local bodies for acquisition to serve
private interests and amount to confiscation of land and property rights of the
relatively poorer classes of society namely the peasantry , adivasis , dalits
among others leaving millions without property rights whereas further
consolidating and extending property rights of the corporate oligarchy and Real
Estate Companies and Upper Middle Income groups .
Where environmental and ecological conditions are not conducive to transfer of
land no land acquisition must take place in particular in coastal areas where
there is a risk of land erosion and salinization of agricultural areas
.Similarly rivers and water bodies essential to the local environment have to
be excluded from such land acquisitions .
The intention of pushing through this legislation with haste is the pressure
by the Corporate Sector to take over land for various reasons including
relating to speculation in land with erosion of value of currency . The
Corporate Sector can never be associated with the concept of " Public Purpose".
In every case ,construction of alternative homesteads must be mandatory for
those whose lands with homesteads are acquired or in case only homesteads are
acquired irrespective whether it is hut or otherwise .Monetary compensation
must be accompanied by alternative livelihood due to the declining value of
the monetary compensation in real terms , and in the case of agricultural land
with water resources , the displaced must be compensated by alternative land
holdings equal to the land holding acquired with access to water resources
,as alternative choice to compensation .
Another important aspect is the prevention of land acquisition with a
colourable purpose or non user of the land in which case the land acquisition
must be set aside , similarly in the eventuality of diverting the land
acquired subsequently for a use not covered by the original acquisition must
result in the land reverting to the State for reallocation to original
landholders .
An estimate /report must be required to be submitted by an expert committee
/body prior to the acquisition ,as to what is the minimal requirement for the
alleged " public purpose" ;land in excess of the minimum must not be acquired ,
similarly agricultural land irrespective of the pattern of cropping ,when
non agricultural land is available in that region must not be permitted to be
acquired .
It is time to implement the right to housing and construction of low cost
housing should be a part of the National and State employment guarantee
projects in rural and urban India .
Niloufer Bhagwat
----- Original Message -----
From: Madhuresh
To: [email protected] ; [email protected] ;
[email protected] ; [email protected] ;
[email protected] ; Activism News Network ; CPJ ; Delhi Invites
; SEZ Peoples Audit ; Young activists
Sent: Monday, September 05, 2011 7:30 PM
Subject: [humanrights-movement:4905] Fwd: PRESS RELEASE : New Land Bill
inHurry will Create More Land Conflicts in the Country
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: NAPM India <[email protected]>
Date: Mon, Sep 5, 2011 at 7:26 PM
Subject: PRESS RELEASE : New Land Bill in Hurry will Create More Land
Conflicts in the Country
To: napmconveners <[email protected]>
New Land Bill in Hurry will Create More Land Conflicts in the Country
More Time Required for A Legislation Dealing with Historical Injustices
New Delhi, September 5 : NAPM along with many other movements from across the
country under the banner of Sangharsh met Honourable Rural Development Minister
Jairam Ramesh on August 5th and 7th and on both occasions reiterated its demand
that Ministry must hold regional and national consultations before the Bill is
introduced in the Parliament. Later many organisations including NAPM wrote to
him seeking an extension of the deadline from August 31st. However, Mr. Ramesh
seems to be a man in hurry. Within four days of the deadline, for receiving the
comments from general public he presents the revised draft to the Cabinet for
its consideration and without much debate Cabinet recommends it for
introduction to the parliament. It is extremely unfortunate that a key
legislation is being pushed in such a hurry and Cabinet further dilutes some of
the positive developments in the earlier draft. It is ironic that when the mood
in country is against the land acquisition then the Cabinet has brought in the
provision that if a private company is acquiring land over 100 acres for a
public purpose, all the land will be acquired by the government.
This hurry has left us wondering about the seriousness with which UPA
government is taking in consideration the land conflicts in the country today.
Time and again we have pointed that the draft Bill fails to take in account the
concerns raised by the people’s movements and the knowledge generated on this
issue including the serious issues with the resettlement and rehabilitation
process in various projects. It is a public knowledge that government has no
cumulative data whatsoever on the total land acquired till date, current status
of all acquired land, number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and number
of people who have been resettled till date. One estimate suggests that there
are 10 crores of IDPs in the country since independence and of which nearly 20
percent people have only received any resettlement or rehabilitation benefits.
A Bill pushed in hurry is an historic opportunity missed and will only
encourage the land conflicts across the country.
We wonder how so many people across the country are supposed to respond to
the Bill only available in Hindi and English on Ministry’s website. We had
asked the Minister to pro-actively reach out to people in different regions
after translating them in regional languages and seek their comments on the
Bill, something which Mr. Ramesh has done by reaching out to various Chief
Ministers but not to the movements and communities. It is unfortunate that the
same has been now recommended to be introduced in the Parliament before it ends
in next few days.
Even then we have submitted our concerns to the Ministry on the draft Bill,
some of which are :
a.. The Bill should be titled as 'Development Planning, Resettlement and
Rehabilitation Bill' ensuring no forcible acquisition and protecting the rights
of the communities over the land and everything attached to it including the
mineral, aquatic and forest cover. Any acquisition should be done only in
accordance with the democratically developed plans as per the provisions of Art
243 and PESA norms by involvement of Gram Sabha and Basti Sabha.
b.. Public Purpose definition should be limited to core functions of the
government performed with the public money and in no case acquisition should be
made for the private corporations where they get benefits due to any forcible
acquisition of land or any other natural wealth under this act. Any project
drawing private profit can't be considered public purpose. We reiterate this
and only this can deal with the unjustified inequity in the country today
leading to injustice for millions.
c.. Given the low level playing field existing till date between different
parties in the process of land acquisition, it is necessary to ensure that even
if it is market base purchase of land or other resources by the private
parties, including builders, then the state should be duty bound to regulate
the market price of resources and ensuring availability of optimum resources of
livelihoods for every family especially those belonging to vulnerable section.
Thus corporations should also be made liable for the R&R provisions of this
bill, which also goes well with the principle of fair play and competitiveness.
d.. Any arbitrary benchmark for the application of R&R provisions should be
done away with and every single family directly or indirectly affected by any
kind of acquisition should be provided with the resettlement and rehabilitation
benefits.
e.. We reject market value for the land approach since neither market value
is fully worked out nor that automatically ensures attainment of alternative
sources of livelihood especially for the least marketised and monetised
community such as Adivasis and Dalits. So, without any ifs and buts appropriate
provisions for alternative livelihood or mandatory employment be made for
project affected people.
f.. Unjust and irrational urgency clause which is also being challenged in
a number of Supreme Court judgements should be done away with and be limited
only to natural calamities and for defence purposes only in the time of war.
We would also like to reiterate that in order to expedite rehabilitation and
ensure principle of minimum displacement it is necessary to put moratorium till
the already displaced are rehabilitated and a new law after wide consultation
is enacted. There is a urgent need to enact the legilsation keeping in mind the
resource crises which country will face in the wake of climtae crisis and the
ongoing agrarian crisis forcing farmers of this country to commit sucicide. The
legilsation unfortunately will fail to address the ongoing land alienation of
the tribals and marginal farmers in the country and further aggravte the land
conflicts, agrarian crisis and impoverishement in the country.
Medha Patkar - Narmada Bachao Andolan
Sandeep Pandey, J P Singh, Manesh Gupta – NAPM, UP
Ulka Mahajan, Suniti S R, Prasad Bhagwe – SEZ Virodhi Manch & NAPM -
Maharashtra
Prafulla Samantara – Loksakti Abhiyan & NAPM Odisha
Bhupender Singh Rawat, Nanu Prasad – Jan Sangharsh Vahini
Bilas Bhongade – Gosi Khurd Prakalp Grasht Sangharsh Samiti
Dr. Sunilam, Adv. Aradhna Bhargava – Kisan Sangharsh Samiti, MP
Akhil Gogoi – KMSS, Assam
Gabriela Dietrich, Geeta Ramakrishnan – Pennuruimai Iyyakam
Gautam Bandyopadhyaya – Nadi Ghati Morcha, Chhattisgarh
P Chennaiah, Ajay Kumar, Ramakrishna Raju, Sarasvathy Kavula – APVVU, Andhra
Pradesh
Rajendra Ravi, Madhuresh Kumar – NAPM, Delhi
Simpreet Singh – Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan
Sister Celia – Domestic Workers Union, NAPM - Karnataka
Sunita Rani, Anita Kapoor – National Domestic Workers’ Union, Delhi
Vimalbhai – Matu Jan Sangathan & NAPM-Uttarakhand
--
National Alliance of People’s Movements
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E-mail: [email protected] | [email protected]
Web : www.napm-india.org
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