New Delhi: The cabinet has cleared emergency executive orders to greatly ease land-acquisition rules and auction minerals such as iron ore to kickstart hundreds of billions of dollars in stalled projects. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that while the interests of farmers have been protected, five categories of projects including defense and national security and rural infrastructure and low-cost housing will be exempt from strict regulations cleared earlier.
Restrictions on buying land, under a law championed by the last Congress government, are among barriers holding up projects worth almost $300 billion or nearly Rs 20 lakh crore in sectors such as rail, steel, mining and roads.
Farmers are still to be compensated at four times the market rate for land in rural areas and twice the rate in urban areas, but the extent of consent needed for land acquisition has been trimmed considerably, especially for public-private partnerships.
"Procedural requirements have been relaxed - like the required consent of 70 per cent of affected landowners and a study on the social impact - provisions like that will not apply; higher compensation will apply," said the Finance Minister, referring to five types of projects that include industrial corridors around major highways.
Four-fifths of all landholders concerned in a sale must give their consent before any land is acquired for a private project.
The ordinance will have to be cleared by the next parliamentary session which starts in February.
The government has now in its seven months in office used an ordinance six times due to a lack of majority in the upper house of Parliament or Rajya Sabha.
After the last Parliament session ended in a legislative logjam on December 23, the government passed two orders to let foreign firms raise their stakes in insurance ventures and allow the commercial mining of coal.
But Parliament, in its winter session which ended last week, did not ratify the November ordinance on coal, forcing the government to pass another ordinance to allow the auction of coal mines.
Restrictions on buying land, under a law championed by the last Congress government, are among barriers holding up projects worth almost $300 billion or nearly Rs 20 lakh crore in sectors such as rail, steel, mining and roads.
"Procedural requirements have been relaxed - like the required consent of 70 per cent of affected landowners and a study on the social impact - provisions like that will not apply; higher compensation will apply," said the Finance Minister, referring to five types of projects that include industrial corridors around major highways.
Advertisement
The ordinance will have to be cleared by the next parliamentary session which starts in February.
Advertisement
After the last Parliament session ended in a legislative logjam on December 23, the government passed two orders to let foreign firms raise their stakes in insurance ventures and allow the commercial mining of coal.
Advertisement
COMMENTS
Advertisement
At 100 Million, PM Modi Is Most-Followed World Leader On X Today PM Modi Launches, Lays Foundation Stone Of Projects Worth Rs 29,400 Crore In Mumbai 'New India' Demands Proactiveness: PM Modi To IAS Trainee Officers Bangladesh Imposes Curfew, Deploys Military As 105 Die In Protests "Jindal Group Executive Showed Porn, Groped Me On Flight": Woman To NDTV Over 300 Indian Students Return Home As 105 Bangladeshis Killed In Protests Joe Biden Is The Best Person To Take On Trump, Says His Campaign Wife Among Two Jailed For Life For Man's Murder In Gurugram: Cops 1,100 Flights Cancelled In US As Microsoft Outage Disrupts Operations Track Latest News Live on NDTV.com and get news updates from India and around the world.