The following article is based on my own interpretation of the said events. Any material borrowed from published and unpublished sources has been appropriately referenced. I will bear the sole responsibility for anything that is found to have been copied or misappropriated or misrepresented in the following post.
Radhikesh Sahu, MBA 2014-16, Vinod Gupta School of Management, IIT Kharagpur.
On 22st March, 2015, Business Standard published a news about How India’s Prime Minister addresses the local farmers on Land Acquisition Bill in All-India-Radio program “Mann Ki Baat” .
Land Acquisition Bill facing severe criticism from opposition parties, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today reached out to farmers, telling them that “lies” are being spread over the measure for “political reasons” to create confusion among the farming community. The Union Cabinet will decide next steps on the Land Acquisition Bill, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said today as Parliament closed for a month-long recess in the Budget Session. The ordinance or emergency executive order that the bill seeks to ratify, lapses on April 5, during the recess.
Referring to his statement in Parliament, Narendra Modi maintained that the government is willing to consider any changes in the bill that would be beneficial for the farmers. He said that the government had decided to modify the Land Bill passed by the UPA government in 2013 after noting the shortcomings of the law and the fact that none of the states in the country had enacted the law despite the fact that it had been cleared by the central government .
He said the government has brought 13 legislation under the purview of Land Acquisition Bill which were exempted in the previous law. The farmers were to get compensation at old rates in case their lands were acquired under old provisions but the new Bill provides full compensation in this regard. The Prime Minister said that the new law will ensure that farmers get full compensation for their land. He added “Our intention is only to see that farmers benefit, their children benefit, villages benefit. So if there are any lacunae in the law, these must be addressed.
In others parts of India Political parties like the Trinamool Congress, DMK, Samajwadi Party, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and NCP helped the government pass the mines and coal bills today. The Congress had supported the Insurance bill in the Rajya Sabha. All these parties oppose the land bill, which makes it easier to make acquire land for big projects and is seen as crucial to the Modi governments reforms agenda.
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