Land losers will get jobs too: CM
HERALD REPORTER
MARGAO, DEC 5
Asserting that the government is committed to bring a total change in the land acquisition policy, Chief Minister Digambar Kamat on Sunday said that henceforth land losers will not only receive compensation as per the prevailing market rates, but the victims will be provided jobs in lieu of the land acquired for public utility projects.
“My government is determined to bring about a total change in the land acquisition policy. The land loser will not only be compensated with market rates, but jobs for their children”, Kamat asserted while speaking at the third Traditional and Cultural Convention organized by the Original Goans Schedule Tribes Association at Ralloi-Curtorim on Sunday.
Responding to the request made by Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) general secretary Vijay Sardessai on a policy for land losers, Kamat said the proposed amendment would do with the practice of compensating the land losers with meager compensation, adding the changes would be brought about in the coming months.
Incidentally, in his address at the convention, Rajya Sabha member Shantaram Naik said the Goa government need not bring about the amendment as the Union government has tabled in parliament an amendment bill seeking to bring far reaching changes in the Land Acquisition Act. “The proposed changes would require the government to first undertake an assessment of the impact a project would have on the humans living on the land in question”, Naik said.
He said the amendment bill seeks to not only pay market value to the land losers, but they losers will also be entitled for job reservations and shares in the project, besides a plot of land for housing. “The bill would have been passed by now had not the opposition stalled the proceedings of parliament in the last few days”, Naik said, and exuded confidence that the proposed changes would come into effect within the next four months.
