UPA govts in states also wanted change in Land Acquisition Act, Nitin Gadkari says

NEW DELHI: In a move to avoid any attack from Congress and UPA partners on the proposed amendments in the Land Acquisition Act, rural development minister Nitin Gadkari on Monday said that even ministers of UPA governments in states wanted changes in the Central law.
Addressing industry leaders at PHD Chamber of Commerce, Gadkari said that the Centre does not want to change the Act, but the amendments have been proposed by all.
Sources said that many of the state revenue ministers who met in the capital recently had recommended major changes to make the land acquisition process easier for industrial and infrastructure development. One of the main suggestions was to re-examine the consent clause since ownership of land rests with the government in Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects. Many of them had even pushed for scrapping of the mandatory social impact assessment (SIA). Some of the states had suggested that SIA should be confined to only large PPP projects.
States including Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, GujKerala and Madhya Pradesh had pushed for the need to re-examine the provision for obtaining consent of affected families in projects including the option of doing away with this clause. Another set of states including Assam, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Andhra Pardesh, Manipur and Tripura had sought that there should be clear definition of “affected family.”