President okays AP’s Land Acquisition Amendment Bill 

Hyderabad: President of India Ramnath Kovind has given his assent to the Bill passed by the AP State Legislative Assembly tweaking some provisions of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013.

The Bill which amended the provisions of the Act was on the lines of the one that the Telangana Assembly had sent to the Centre for which it had already obtained President’s assent. Now the AP State government would be able to acquire 6,000 to 8,000 acres in Amaravati whose owners have refused to surrender their land under the land pooling scheme.

The state government which had acquired 33,000 acres land under the land pooling scheme for Amaravati hit the road block in acquiring their land necessary for connectivity among parcels of land.

The amendment would come in handy for all future land acquisitions too since the land owner would have to agree to the price that the state offers though there would be some safeguards to ensure that the farmer's interests would not be undermined.

According to one official, the AP government tweaked the provisions since the state needs land to raise several projects in sectors of infrastructure, communications and construction.

The land acquisition Act, 2013 brought in by the previous UPA government proscribed acquisition of multi-crop irrigated lands regardless of what purpose the land is being acquired. "Now that the bill obtained president's assent, there would be no need for social impact assessment," on official said. Detailed guidelines in support of the amendments made to the principal act would be released in due course of time.