Mir Iqbal
SRINAGAR, Sept 21: All India Congress Committee member(AICC), Randeep Singh Surjewala, today said the Jammu and Kashmir Government should ratify the laws in the State Assembly to implement National Food Security Scheme here.
“The Central Acts on matters falling in the State List are not applicable to Jammu and Kashmir unless ratified by the State Legislature, but I hope Congress with National Conference, will work towards getting the scheme implemented in the state,” said Surjewala, a Cabinet Minister in Haryana.
He said the UPA Government has written a ‘new history’ of India in favour of millions of Indians with the sole aim to give them ‘voice’, ‘opportunity’, ‘trust’ and ‘enforceability’ through conception of the rights like Food Security Bill and Land Acquisition Bill.
Elaborating the National Food Security Scheme, he said the bill passed in the monsoon session of Parliament would benefit 75 lakh population of Jammu and Kashmir of its total population of 1.25 crore population.
“The Food Security Bill will benefit 18 lakh urban population and 52.10 lakh rural population in Jammu and Kashmir,” he said.
He said that one of the latest rights based legislations aimed at changing the very concept of governance and translating the concept of ‘social equality’ and ‘distributive justice’ – a meaningful reality, are ‘Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement’.
He added the law would be free from prejudices of the 1894 Act, which was deeply flawed with unjust and arbitrary provisions. “Catalyst for this law was the series of systematic atrocities committed in the name of the land acquisition and an understanding of the same by Congress leadership, particularly Vice-President, Rahul Gandhi by reaching out to all stake holders with a view to make the land owners/tenants/agricultural/labour as a ‘partner in development to share in the benefits’ arising out of a just acquisition process,” he said.
He said given the inaccurate nature of circle rates and inherent deficiencies in determining a fair market price by relying upon the sale deeds in the vicinity, this law proposes ‘payment of compensation of two times the market value in urban areas’ by increasing the amount of ‘solatium’ from 30 percent to 100 per cent. Compensation in rural areas is fixed at two times to four times of market price.
“For the first time, this law envisages holding of a ‘social impact assessment’ to justify the acquisition serving the public purpose as a pre-condition to acquisition. This Act, thus, gives right to all stake holders in a ‘participative land acquisition process’, he said.
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