NEW DELHI (Reuters) ? The government on Friday suggested offering farmers as much as six times the price of their land when it is taken over for industrial use, as it released a draft of a law that may help fast-track industrialisation in Asia's third-largest economy.
The draft Land Acquisition Bill also proposes at least 80 percent of owners must consent to such acquisitions, which may calm widespread protests in India against the government's arbitrary takeover of land for industry at below-market rates.
Several multi-billion dollar projects have been held up as farmers violently oppose the takeover of their lands and analysts have said the issue could stutter plans to accelerate India's economic growth to double-digits, as in peer China.
Such protests have halted the construction of South Korean POSCO's $12 billion steel mill in Orissa and held up the building of tens of thousands of apartments outside New Delhi that are needed to house a rapidly growing urban population, among others.
India's current land acquisition law was framed over a century ago and allows the government to take over land for a "public purpose" without compensation.
"This draft Bill seeks to balance the need for facilitating land acquisition for various public purposes including infrastructure development, industrialisation and urbanisation while at the same time meaningfully addressing the concerns of farmers and those whose livelihoods are dependent on the land being acquired," the government statement showed.
The bill will have to be approved by the cabinet and passed by parliament to become law. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had said it was unlikely the bill would be passed in parliament in the session that begins on Monday.
The land bill is pivotal for the ruling Congress party to cement support among farmers, ahead of next year's polls in key Uttar Pradesh state -- which has seen several flare ups over land acquisitions -- and national elections in 2014.
The Congress party is trying to tap into resentment among farmers, who say their lands have been taken away cheaply and that they have no other means of livelihood.
Powerful Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi, seen as prime minister-in-waiting, have personally pushed for the new law.
(Reporting by C.J. Kuncheria; editing by Malini Menon
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