Concerned citizens representing a broad spectrum of political parties and people’s organisations on Tuesday expressed their fears over the way amendments were being proposed to the Land Acquisition Act, 2013 in the form of an ordinance and said people’s consultation was a must before any amendments were made.
At a round table conference on the ordinance issued by the Government of India on Land Acquisition, Relief and Rehabilitation Act 2013, organised by the Bhoomi Upadhi Hakkula Vedika and Dalit Bahujan Front, Telangana Joint Action Committee (JAC) chairman M. Kodandaram said in the past, land was acquired only for irrigation projects or for large factories, but post 1990s, private parties with influence have managed to acquire large tracts of land.
While influential people managed to get away without losing their land, it is the poor who always suffered, he said, adding that any amendments to the draconian Act could be proposed only after extensive consultations with the concerned people.
He wanted the government to withdraw the proposed amendments, saying it amounted to violation of people’s rights.
Senior journalist Mallepalli Laxmaiah from the Telangana Intellectuals’ Forum said that earlier there was a social mobilisation aspect to land acquisition to establish whether it was for a public purpose or not.
The government could take any land, but for specific purposes only, if it were for infrastructure development or housing and the like, but public consultation was an integral part of the process, he pointed out.
Others who spoke on similar lines included P. Shankar representing the Bhoomi Upadhi Hakkula Vedika, Congress leaders M. Kodanda Reddy and Addanki Dayakar, researchers Usha Seetalaxmi and Ashalatha, Secretary of the Communist Party of India-Marxist, Andhra Pradesh, P. Madhu and Malla Reddy of the CPI(M), former MLA of the CPI Gunda Mallesh, K. Goverdhan of the CPI-Marxist Leninist (New Democracy) and Sunil of the Rural Development Institute.
