19.3.15

Somewhere in Uttar Pradesh....

Amid intense politicking over the Centre's land acquisition policy , the UP government is touting the takeover of land for the 300 km Lucknow-Agra Expressway as a big success. At a cabinet meeting, chaired by chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, the government cleared a proposal to use this model as a template for all future land acquisitions in the state.
An official of the UP Expressway Industrial Develop ment Authority said that 95% of land required for the Rs.15,000-crore Lucknow-Agra project has already been acquired with the consent of farmers, without a single protest.
The UP government claims that its new land policy will do away with the complex procedure and present a better system for land acquisition which will ensure proper value of land, consent of sellers and rehabilitation of the affected people. At present, the government acquires land under the Land Acquisition Act enforced by the UPA regime, which is quite complicated. This entails notification of all land (Section 4), followed by acquisition (Section 6), possession (Section 8) and finally, construction (Section 11). But the new system proposes to bypass the four provisions of the Act.
Now, government, development authorities, corporations and other local bodies can purchase land from farmers and owners directly after negotiating with them and ensuring protection of their socio-economic interests. Official sources said under the new provision, the owner will be compensated for the crops and trees apart from the land.
Additional DMs will be responsible for settling compensation for land costing up to Rs.10 crore, while for a higher value, the decision will be taken by a committee headed by DMs.
Mutual consent between the buyer and the seller will be the main feature of the new policy the clauses of the old policy will be used only when mutual consent fails to yield any result.


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