The government on Friday released a draftland acquisition bill that seeks to put in place a legal framework to not only protect the interests of owners and prospective buyers, but also those whose livelihoods depend on the acquired physical asset.
Land markets in India being imperfect, the government intends to enact a transparent and flexible set of rules and regulations and to ensure its enforcement,Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh says in the foreword to the draft.
In recent years, there have been a spate of protests, some even turning violent, over acquisition of farmland for housing and industrial projects, calling for a transparent set of rules that balances the need for industrialisation with the issue of livelihood.
“Under our Constitution, land is a State subject, but land acquisition is a Concurrent subject. So far, the basic law governing the land acquisition process has been the Land Acquisition Act, 1894,” Ramesh said.
“Although it has been amended from time to time, it is painfully evident that the basic law has become archaic,” he added.”The draft bill is being placed in the public domain as part of the pre-legislative consultative process. Comments are invited preferably before Aug 31,” Ramesh said, adding land records will also be updated and digitised to induce transparency.
However, deposit rates of OBC has been increased up to 100 basis points or 1 percentage point.The interest rate on term deposit between 91-179 days of OBC will now earn 8 per cent from existing level of 7 per cent, an increase of 100 basis points.
The term deposit maturity in between 189 days to less than 1 year has been revised upward by 50 basis points to 9 per cent, OBC said in a statement.Earlier this week, the RBI raised the short-term lending (repo) rate by 50 basis points to 8 per cent and the short-term borrowing (reverse repo) rate to 7 per cent in a bid to tame inflation.
Subsequently, the interest rate under the Marginal Standing Facility, an additional borrowing window, has gone up to 9 per cent from the earlier level of 8.5 per cent.
