Land Acquisition Bill Cleared By Group of Ministers (GoM)

The Land Acquisition Bill was cleared on 16 October 2012 by a Group of Ministers (GoM) headed by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar. It is going to be presented to the Cabinet this month
 
The bill was cleared after three rounds of vigorous debate with few changes from the version presented to the Union Cabinet in September 2012.

With the clearance of Bill, the Group of Ministers agreed with the proposal to seek consent of two-third of land owners, instead of the existing 80 per cent of project-affected families, for acquiring land for public-private-partnership or private projects.

The GoM also agreed on flexibility in the validity period for the social impact assessment (SIA), based on the assessment of the state chief secretary’s committee which has to be constituted to review SIAs for acquisitions above 200 crore.
 
The Bill is now named as, The Right to Fair Compensation, Resettlement, Rehabilitation and Transparency in Land Acquisition Bill. It was originally introduced in Parliament in September 2011.