JAIPUR: After radical changes in labour laws, the Vasundhara Raje-led Rajasthan government is firming up plans for a new land acquisition Act that seeks to facilitate speedier acquisition of land for industry and government by scrapping some key measures, notably those requiring consent of landowners, that form part of legislation passed by UPA last year.While relaxing the consent provisions, the desert state’s version of the law will hike the quantum of compensation to incentivise purchase of land from owners.According to senior officials involved in the drafting process, the new law will get rid of a provision requiring consent of 70% to 80% (in case of private projects) of land owners and a requirement to carry out a Social Impact Assessment Study (SIA).These relaxations will apply to “Core Infrastructure Projects” such as roads, power lines, bridges and pipelines regardless of whether these are being implemented by the public or the private sector. However, to incentivise owners to part with their lands, the quantum of compensation will be increased from two to two-and-a-half of the prevailing rates for urban areas and from four to four-and-a-half for rural areas.“We are not against farmers or land-owners at all. We are against processes which increase delay in acquiring land. By enhancing compensation, we will ensure land owners get a better deal as well as the project proponents who, under the current law, will otherwise have to wait for 4 years and 10 months, which is a huge delay and adds to costs. The burden of these high costs is eventually borne by the consumers, so why let that happen?” a senior official argued.Rural Development Minister Gulab Chand Kataria, who headed a three-member ministerial group which vetted the proposed legislation, said the draft was sent to the CMO late last week and it is now for Raje to take a call on which measures to approve.“We have proposed to clarify the urban and rural boundaries more clearly to help identify lands better. The minimum expectation is that owners should get more rates than what is mentioned in the DLC. We have also proposed a ceiling on the quantum of land which can be acquired by one project proponent in both rural and urban areas — for the former it is 1000 hectares and for the latter it is 200 hectares,” Kataria said.Industry has been critical of the consent and Social Impact Assessment (SIA) clauses of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, which is currently in force. While the industry has sought reducing the percentage of landowners whose consent is required from 70% to 60% or 50% and limiting the SIAs to only large projects (more than 500 acres in area), a higher quantum of compensation may not be to their liking.The complete doing away of these contentious measures is also certain to invite criticism from farmers groups and other organisations fighting against forcible land acquisition. The senior official cited earlier said that a draft of the proposed legislation will be uploaded on the government’s website soon after the Chief Minister’s Office clears it, which could be on Monday or Tuesday.While there may be some changes, depending on the response from industry, the social sector and other stakeholders, officials believe that the BJP’s three-fourths majority in the assembly will enable it to push through the legislation without major amendments.According to experts, since land is a state subject, the central land acquisition law acts as a model based on which states have to devise their own laws. Rajasthan had first come up with its own state specific land acquisition law in the year 1953 and which was amended several times subsequently. Once the central law was brought into force, it superseded all previous state and central amendments to the law.Soon after she came to power, Vasundhara Raje set up a ministerial committee comprising Kataria, PWD Minister Yunus Khan and Health Minister Rajendra Rathore to amend the law for facilitating speedier land acquisition. As in the case of the labour laws, these amendments will also have to receive presidential assent which means it will have to cleared by the Centre.