<div><div>At the end, it will be the Land Act that the Congress-led UPA government had enacted in 2013.</div><div> </div><div>Woefully short of numbers, the joint parliamentary committee, studying the land bill, on Monday (3 August) decided to bring back social impact assessment and consent clauses. Amendments to this effect were moved by 11 BJP members on the panel.</div><div> </div><div>Sources said that the S S Ahluwalia-led panel wanted to bring out a “unanimous report” due to which they had to go for massive compromises, seen in many quarters as Narendra Modi government’s defeat of reformist agenda.</div><div> </div><div>But a committee member said: “It’s a people’s victory”.</div><div> </div><div>There are still three points on which the BJP and the Congress (and others) don’t agree as yet – a result why a meeting of the parliamentary panel has been called again on Tuesday.</div><div> </div><div>The committee will give its report to Parliament thereafter (in all probability on August 7).</div><div> </div><div>Apart from the social impact assessment and consent clauses making a comeback, the Parliamentary panel is going to recommend that the land loser gets to be a participant in any commercial enterprise.</div><div> </div><div>Monday’s meeting was boycotted by the Trinamool as they said they didn’t get enough time to study the amendments. Sources said that they were against the very idea of acquiring land, and they could not be seen party to the committee’s recommendations.</div><div> </div><div>The ruling NDA has 14 members in the 30-member committee. Apart from BJP members, the alliance has one member each from the Shiv Sena, Lok Janshakti Party and Telugu Desam.</div><div> </div><div>Among the three areas where the BJP and the opposition still have differences, one is regarding the prevalent practice of money “deposited is money given clause”. Simplified, it means that even if a farmer is having objections to his land being taken away, and if the Collector deposits money in an account, it is deemed as the farmer having received the money. Congress and other opposition parties like the BJD don’t agree with this and want this to be revised.</div><div> </div><div>With Monday’s development, sources said that the government may reiterate that the states have a right to frame better land laws. In last month’s Niti Aayog meet, states like BJP/Sena-run Maharashtra wanted to go the whole hog on the land bill.</div><div> </div></div>
