File phto: Parliament building in New Delhi.
Shiv Sena, a constituent of the NDA government on Tuesday huddled with Opposition parties to work out a strategy to thwart the proposed changes in the 2013 Land Bill Act passed during the UPA regime. The NDA's amended Land Bill is up for consideration before a Joint Committee of Parliament.
While the main Opposition Congress submitted its list of amendments to the parliamentary panel seeking withdrawal of changes in the Act and asking for uniform compensation, CPI(M) will submit its recommendations soon.
The parliamentary joint committee headed by BJP lawmaker SS Ahluwalia had yesterday decided to seek two more days' time till August 5 to submit its report. Congress and some other opposition parties are striving to come up with joint amendments.
The meeting that took place at the residence of Nationalist Congress Party Chief Sharad Pawar today was attended by Anandrao Adsul from Shiv Sena, members from Congress including KV Thomas, Kalyan Banerjee from Trinamool Congress, YSR Congress lawmaker Vara Prasadarao Velagapalli and Md Salim from CPI-M among others, sources said.
Sources in the Congress party said that it had sought restoration of the consent of 80 per cent of land-owners to be obtained for private projects and that of 70 per cent land-owners for PPP ones.
The present bill exempts five categories from this provision - defence, rural infrastructure, affordable housing, industrial corridors and infrastructure projects, including public-private partnership (PPP) projects where the government owns the land.
The 2013 Act also required that a social impact assessment be conducted to identify affected families and calculate the impact when land is acquired. This provision has been done away with.
BJD and Trinamool Congress have already written to the Joint Committee of Parliament about their amendments seeking total withdrawal of the NDA's bill.
The strategy of Congress is to somehow get a majority of members in the panel to oppose the main amendments being brought by the government in the UPA's land Act.
In the meeting at Mr Pawar's residence, Congress, Trinamool Congress and CPI-M said that they are for "total withdrawal" of the NDA's land bill.
Shiv Sena is not seeking total withdrawal of NDA's bill but has its reservations against the amendments, which removed provisions of consent clause and social impact survey from the bill that existed in UPA's land law.
Today's meeting was aimed at exploring the possibility work out a joint amendment, the sources said.