Social impact assessment improve acquisition process?
Answers
In keeping with the goal of establishing a comprehensive, participative and meaningful process of land acquisition that the Land Acquisition Act, 2013 espouses, the Central Government issued the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Social Impact Assessment and Consent) Rules, 2014 on 8th August. The rules have been designed to serve 3 principal objectives. First, they seek to put in place a robust framework for conducting a comprehensive analysis of the social impact of the proposed acquisition along with obtaining the consent of land owners. Second, they aim to put in place adequate safeguards as well as checks and balances to ensure that the social impact assessment is free and fair and that the consent is not acquired by any coercive method. Finally, they clearly delineate the time period within which the acquisition has to be completed in order to make the entire process more expeditious. Notably, they require the Appropriate Government to maintain a web-based work flow and information management system to track every step of the acquisition process. Against this backdrop, it would be apposite to succinctly analyze some salient features of the Rules.