The National Alliance of People’s Movement (NAPM) announced that on December 2, People's Movements to Converge in Delhi Protesting Changes to Social, Environmental, Land and Labour Laws.It expressed concern that a cacophony of voices, from corporate houses, leaders of political parties to Ministers in the NDA government are demanding and announcing amendments to the Right to Fair Compensation, Resettlement and Rehabilitation, Transparency in Land Acquisition Act, 2013, even before it has been fully implemented.
The Act was enacted after going through several rounds of consultations with all stake-holders and debated by two Parliamentary Standing Committees headed by senior BJP leaders, Shri Kalyan Singh (2007) and Smt Sumitra Mahajan (2009). It was done in the background of the violent clashes in Nandigram, Singur, Kalinganagar, Bhatta Parsaul and many other places across the country, lest it be forgotten.NAPM deplored that the proposed changes in the Act, to remove the consent clause and Social Impact Assessment for land acquisition, will take away two key provisions of the law. Without these, the law will be a replica of the colonial Land Acquisition Act, 1894, now repealed.
Similarly, NDA government is proposing changes to NREGA into a policy, make changes to Forest Rights Act, 2006, amend National Food Security Act, and bring significant changes to labour laws, in a bid to boost their campaign 'Make in India'. This is not acceptable to us and we will challenge it. These laws have been framed after years of struggle by people's movements, it added. NAPM said that agricultural crisis is writ large and in 100 days of NDA government 4600 farmers committed suicide and another 46,000 to 69,000 attempted.
