CPI demands new land acquisition act

KOLKATA - Communist Party of India (CPI) general secretary A.B. Bardhan Sunday said his party wants a new land acquisition act that “will benefit the poor, the farmers and the displaced”.

“We want a new land acquisition act. We cannot go ahead with this old act made during the time of British rule. We want an act that will benefit the poor, the farmers and the displaced,” Bardhan said.

The central government promised to bring the Land Acquisition Amendment Bill in parliament’s winter session after Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in August, following the farmers’ agitation in Uttar Pradesh to demand higher compensation for land notified for acquisition for the Yamuna Expressway.

The Congress has demanded that Haryana’s legislation on land acquisition and rehabilitation, which has provisions for acquisition of land at market rates and an annuity for 33 years, should be sent to all states as a model law.

“We want the new land acquisition act to be farmer, poor and displaced friendly. It is us who have been vocal about the need of new land acquisition act for a long time,” Bardhan said.

The CPI is a prominent partner of Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) led Left Front government in West Bengal.

The issue of land acquisition has turned the tide against the state’s ruling Left Front and led to a series of electoral triumphs of the Trinamool Congress.

The Land Acquisition Amendment Bill, which seeks to amend the Land Acquisition Act of 1894, provides for mandatory social impact assessment for any acquisition resulting in large-scale displacement.