This Article is From Feb 25, 2015

BJP Guilty of Doublespeak on Compensation to Farmers Under the Land Acquisition Ordinance?

Respresentational picture

New Delhi:

As the land acquisition debates spill from Parliament onto the streets of Delhi, the BJP put out a clarification on its Twitter page on the supposed benefits of the ordinance: saying farmers will get four times the market value of the land.

But the BJP is being somewhat selective with the facts. A rider in the Law, retained by the Ordinance leaves it to states to decide whether to award between two to four times the market value of the land, depending on the distance of the project from urban centres.

This is a clause presumably brought in to ensure that land near cities doesn't become unaffordable, while farmers in hinterland get benefit from a higher multiplier.

But using this loophole at least two BJP led states - Haryana and Madhya Pradesh - have fixed as compensation of two times the market value of the land for both rural and urban areas.

The Haryana government says that they have fixed the same rate for urban and rural areas because varying rates "may lead to several disputes and litigation so to avoid any confusion it has been kept uniform and notified by the state government."

Maharashtra, under the then Congress-NCP government has also kept rates virtually same - two times urban areas and 2.4 areas in rural areas.

But three other states from which NDTV sourced data - seemed to respect the spirit of the law.

Karnataka has notified two times for urban areas, and four times for rural areas.

Andhra Pradesh and Telengana have notified two times urban areas, about three times for rural areas and four times for tribal areas.

The BJP claims that fixing the rates is up to the state, but that is not something they mention in their propaganda for the law.

Crucially, does fixing a flat rate on the lowest side for the whole state deny farmers their due?

 

.