The Centre is expediting a comprehensive law on land acquisitions by governments to ensure protection of interests of farmers who play important positive role in food security, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee announced in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday.

He was responding to an impromptu discussion that washed out 55 minutes of the Question Hour on death of three farmers in Mathura and Aligarh districts in violence to secure better compensation for land acquired by the Uttar Pradesh Government for a highway expressway from Noida, a Delhi suburb, to Agra.

The issue that had rocked both Houses of Parliament on Monday forcing adjournment without transacting business threatened a repeat on Tuesday as well when pandemonium broke out in the Lok Sabha right at the start of the sitting with members rushing into the well. Speaker Meira Kumar, however, tactfully allowed agitated Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav to air his views and then permitted nearly a dozen others to speak.

Mulayam was agitated that police did not even register a case of deaths caused by unprovoked police firing on the agitating farmers while others sought an inquiry and arrest of the senior police officers present at the time of the firing, expressing concern at forcible acquisition of land from farmers in not only Uttar Pradesh but in many states.

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Dara Singh Chauhan, however, defended his party's government in Uttar Pradesh, pointing out that there is no forcible acquisition, the police has already registered necessary FIRs on killing of the farmers, a settlement has been reached to pay Rs 570 per sq metre and kins of those killed are being given Rs 10 lakhs as relief and those wounded Rs 2 lakhs.

Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar is getting ready the Bill to replace the 1894 law on land acquisitions and it would be piloted in Parliament as early as possible, Mukherjee said, responding to members cutting across party lines asking the government to spell out a clear-cut policy on acquisition of land for only public projects.

Many state governments act like real estate brokers to acquire and handover land at throwaway price to builders, colonisers and industrialists for want of a clear-cut policy, the members asserted while demanding a law protecting farmers' interests and an immediate full-day discussion on the issue of the land acquisitions.

Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad wanted to know what happened to the Bill finalised and tabled in Parliament by the UPA-I government in which he was also a minister. He reminded the government that the farmers would not agitate if it had implemented the decision taken at that time not to acquire land for industries and Special Economic Zones (SEZs) but make them negotiate price with the farmers and allow them to come up only on non-cultivable land in undeveloped areas.

Though Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee was not in the House since her injury last week, Lalu also had a dig at her for paralysing the railway projects by declaring not to acquire even an inch of land for the purpose without the farmers' consent.

Former BJP President Rajnath Singh, who had rushed to the site of the farmers' agitation on Monday, said officers and contractors were forcing farmers to sign land acquisition papers and police resorted to firing when they wanted compensation at par with the rate given to farmers in the neighbouring Gautam Buddha Nagar district.

Janata Dal(U) President Sharad Yadav said it was shameful that the peacefully agitating farmers are assaulted with lathis and firing on the day the nation was celebrating the Independence Day. He said nobody would object to the government acquiring land for the public projects but it should give adequate compensation. He wanted a law that prohibits purchase of agriculture land by anybody for industrial or other purposes on the same lines on which the tribals' land can not be bought by any non-tribal.

Former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda wanted arrest of the police officers for the criminal act of brutal killings of the farmers and sought a Bill in the current session itself to protect the farmers' interests as otherwise he said the farmers are no longer the landlords but become "land losers."

Rashtriya Lok Dal's Jayant Chaudhary, son of former minister Ajit Singh and Mathura MP, narrated how the authorities even tried to prevent him from reaching the agitated farmers and wondered what happened to the Bill promised in the President's address to protect the farmers' interests. He said farmers would readily give their land for power projects or for defence purposes but they should not be forced to sell cheap their land for benefiting the moneybags.

When Basudeb Acharia (CPM) sought to join others to press for adequate compensation to the agitating farmers for their land acquisition, the Trinamul Congress members sought to remind him Nandigram. He shot back that not an inch of land has been acquired in Nandigram. He was hooted again when he claimed thousands of acres of land was being snatched from the hands of farmers for SEZs, he quipped that no SEZ has been allowed in his state of West Bengal.