Land Acquisition Bill and the dilution of the principle of 'land for land'

Among the euphoria surrounding the passing of the new Land Acquisition Bill, that a key provision ensuring land to those displaced by irrigation projects was done away with has gone largely unnoticed. In her column on the Business Standard, Sreelatha Menon noted that this deletion took place in the intervening period between its passing in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha at the behest of the Madhya Pradesh government. It must be noted that the principle of compensating land for a farmer's land was put into place by the tribunal established in Narmada water dispute where the government was ordered to give effect to this principle in compensating the victims. However, while land compensation was awarded to a large number of families in Gujarat and Maharashtra, the state of Madhya Pradesh resisted giving land as compensation.

With the overnight removal of the provision guaranteeing an acre of land to an affected family after passing in the Lok Sabha, the government has taken a stand that flies against the victories achieved in the decades-long struggle in the Sardar Sarovar project as well as the ideals of "fair compensation" which the Bill is purported to be premised on.