Land Acquisition Bill opposed by developers
New Delhi- In a recent declaration by the Union Cabinet, the much expected Land acquisition Bill, 2012 was cleared and will be presented in parliament for the upcoming Budget session. This has eventually created a furor among the real estate developers as they wanted private-to-private land acquisition be off the new land acquisition bill.
The developers fear the implementation of the new land acquisition bill will increase the property prices in the upcoming years and will further jack up the property prices.
The new bill which is replacing the existing British-era Land Acquisition Act, states that about 70 percent of the land losers will be consented obligatorily for government acquisition for private project followed by about 80 percent of the consensus to be taken by the private sector.
Also the new bill will strain on one of the major factors which the old bill lacked. i.e.ensuring maximum rehabilitation and compensation packages for land losers followed by controversies and oppositions from private sectors like the property development and the real estate firms.
The key reasons for revising the old land acquisition bill was to overcome the depression of the earlier bill which caused great furors each time the government authorities were involved in issues of land acquisition be it for private or public or partnership projects.
With this law being implied, the authorities shouldn’t include open market land acquisitions by real estate and property developers if they are procuring lands at market valuations through mutual consent. This move will further abolish the process of urbanization for stipulations like acquisition in excess of 50 acres in urban areas and in excess of 100 acres in suburban areas. This will further cause unauthorized and unorganised development in the coming future. Not just this, it will also strain the local administration by providing the needed infrastructure facilities and will carelessly delay the development process, as there will be an interference of a government authority.
The realty industry also fears the impact of the move on the focus of the affordable housing in India which is already overlooked due to excessive actions not on ground but on paper. The proposed bill also states that the land acquired for urbanization purposes should have 20 percent of the land allotted by the government for the person who is parting away with it.
The bill also proposed that an underutilized land has to be returned to the owner followed by the application of the provisions in the absence of the compensation award which would be the land owner receiving funds in his bank account. And in case the land owner hasn’t received or accepted the payment, it will not be counted as the award of compensation. The land owner can negotiate with the buyer for a higher price if he hasn’t received any compensation.
This entire process of land acquisition and award of compensation will be completed within five years as per the bill or the transaction will be cancelled. This eventually gives negative vibes of more uncertainty in the land acquisition process.
The key reason of the revision of the bill was to cater to the fairly compensation to the land owners and appropriate resettlement options.
Talking about the developers reluctance towards the new land acquisition bill, there will be a huge amount of compensation burdened along with the current market land price which eventually will increase the input cost. In case of avoiding this, there will be an unauthorised development.
The developers feel that there should be no interference from the act and it should be restricted only to government acquisition moves. Most developers feel that this act by the government should balance both the developer as well as the land owners issues. Henceforth they feel that the private-to-private land acquisitions transactions should be kept out of the purview of the Land Acquisition Act.
Apparently, the bill has only tried to address the grievances of the land owners and not the developers and the consumers. Restructuring of the bill is compulsory to provide fairly compensation to all the people.
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British-era Land Acquisition Act, budget session, compensation packages, Delhi NCR, government acquisition, Land Acquisition Bill, maximum rehabilitation, Property development, Real Estate Developers, Union Cabinet, Urbanization
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