T govt notifies new land acquisition act

The Telangana government on Wednesday night notified The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Telangana Amendment) Act. The Act had received the President's assent last week and was notified by the Union home ministry on Wednesday .

Taking cue from the Centre, the state government also issued a notification, thus bringing the new act into force with immediate effect. Now, the state government can acquire land and release compensation as per the norms listed in the amended act.

Though the original Bill was passed by the Telangana Assembly in December last year, the Union law ministry had raised some questions and pressed for amendments to make it more transparent. To incorporate these amendments, the Assembly was convened on April 30 and the Bill passed in the revised format.The President gave his assent last Friday and notified the gazette on Saturday .

Chief minister K



Chandrasekhar Rao has now asked officials to speed up the land acquisition with the help of the new act.The revenue department will take steps to send the copy of the act to districts so that the special de puty collectors will acquire land based on the revised land act.

The new Act will come as a huge help to the government as it wants to acquire one lakh acres to complete all pending irrigation projects in the state. As against the total requirement of 69,078 acres for the Kaleswaram irrigation project, the government had acquired about 23,968 acres through GO 123. Now, it has to acquire about 45,000 acres with the help of the new land acquisition law.

As per an irrigation department report submitted to the CM, as many as 23 irrigation and road projects were adversely hit due to the land hurdles. Almost all contractors stopped working after GO 123 was cancelled by the high court, resulting in immense project price escalation.