The Land Acquisition Act, 2015

The present legislation has been introduced as a replacement to the age old Land Acquisition Act,
1894. Land Acquisition basically refers to ceasing land by the government from private
individuals for public purposes. The new act, like the old one runs on the idea of eminent
domain.
The present act has come under fire for not adhering to international humanitarian standards. The
present Act has introduced provisions which fare much better as compared to the 1894 Act, it is
still not entirely well suited to the needs of farmers and poor dwellers.
Public Purpose has been defined in Section 2 of the Act. Primarily, the act allows the
acquisition of land for public purposes. It allows exclusion of a number of requirements such as
social impact assessment, acquisition of irrigation canal and consent for following categories:
national security and defense, industrial corridors, rural and urban industrialization and
affordable housing. Since these three requirements are the only actual check on the misuse of
land acquisition there is a severe possibility for misuse in this case.
There are no checks on the misuse of land. A number of times, the amount of land grabbed is far
more than what is actually required. The extra land remains waste and unoccupied. There should
be checks against this because the harm done to the displaced populations cannot be undone. A
lot of times, the people affected are not people who are land owners but those who are dependent
on it for their livelihood such as landless workers etc. The compensation for land does not take
into account the loss of livelihood to these groups.
The new act aims to do away with a number of shortcomings of the last act. The biggest problem
in the old legislation was inadequate compensation. The new act aims to rectify this. Now, if the
land is being seized for a public-private project then the consent of at least 80% of the residents
will be required. The compensation also required a mark-up from the market prices.
This legislation has been seen as a political tool used by the newly instated NDA government.
Critics say that land acquisition is not such a pertinent problem to the growth and development of
the country; it is being portrayed as one.