Consent from 90% owners necessary for land acquisition: Experts

21 October, 2012

Congress president Sonia Gandhi has reportedly disapproved the draft of the Land Acquisition Bill, which has been finalized by the group of ministers (GoM) led by agriculture minister Sharad Pawar.

UPA CHIEF, Sonia Gandhi has reportedly objected to the point that says consent of only 67% landowners is required to acquire a piece of land by the government for private projects.

Food policy analyst, Devinder Sharma said that the consent clause should follow the norm of 90% instead of 80%. “I will say that it should be raised to 90%, what AK Antony had also asked for, rather than 80%. The GoM reduced the consent clause percentage to 67 from 80 only to help industries,” Mr Sharma told this citizen journalist .

Notably, as reported by The Times of India, Mrs. Gandhi while expressing her displeasure has made it clear to the government that she will not accept anything below 80%.

In the GoM meeting, the defence minister and senior congress leader AK Antony had said that the consent clause to acquire land for the private projects should be 90%.

In the original draft also, it was 80%, which has been later modified to 67%, in the wake of the concerns expressed by the industrial sector. The industries were of the view that 80% consent clause will make it almost impossible to acquire land for private projects. After that the 80% has been changed to 67%.

The Congress Supremo has also made it clear that consent threshold could be diluted to 67% only for acquisition for Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects if the ownership of the land stayed with the government.

The 80% clause will surely irk industries but they shall have to cope with it as the Congress president feels that dilution of land bill will not reflect a good image of the party in rural areas, especially among the farmers.