Telangana Assembly passes Land Acquisition Bill

Hyderabad: Telangana Assembly on Wednesday passed a new bill for land acquisition by tweaking the central government`s Land Acquisition Act, 2013.

"The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Telangana Amendment) Act, 2016" was passed amid protest by main opposition Congress.

Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao said the state legislation was better than "The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013". He said the central Act was brought in an irresponsible fashion.

He said Gujarat, Rajasthan and some other states had already enacted their own land acquisition Acts to speed up land acquisition for completing the projects.

The Chief Minister dismissed the Congress`s argument that the state has no right to amend a central Act, pointing out that under Article 254 of the Constitution, the state had a right to pass its own legislation on a subject which is in concurrent list. 

He also told the House that the bill was passed on the advice of the Prime Minister and after getting the nod from the central government.

Rao alleged that the opposition parties were creating hurdles in the irrigation projects by provoking people going to be displaced. He said the opposition parties provoked evacuees of Mallannasagar project being built across Godavari river.

The Chief Minister said his government issued two orders to speed up land acquisition and pay fair compensation to the evacuees but some people deliberately created problems.

The state government was of the view that the central Act would delay the land acquisition process and execution of various projects and had issued two separate orders. However, it had to face strong opposition from all quarters and there were also legal hurdles in their implementation.

Leader of Opposition K Jana Reddy argued that the state has no right to amend a central legislation. He criticised the government for going ahead with the bill without addressing the people`s concerns.