The current gloomy market scenario dictates the need for a more “investor-friendly” land acquisition bill, the rural development minister Jairam Ramesh said here on Monday.

Elaborating on the more “investor-friendly” bill, he said, the new amended bill would do away with the retrospective clause and replace it with the prospective clause. "My original position was to apply the Act retrospectively. I have changed that view now. If economy was growing at nine percent a year really, I may not have changed my view. But current economic circumstances dictate that the Act should do away with the retrospective clause,” he said.

The draft Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill (LARR) 2011 has gone through several changes ever since Ramesh unveiled it last year.

One of the important clauses introduced in the revised bill in August last year was the retrospective clause.  

The clause in the earlier bill said the Act would be applicable to all cases of land acquisition before the date of commencement of the act if the award under the 1894 Act had not been made. It would also be applicable if the possession of the land had not been taken regardless of whether the award had been made or not.

What it meant is that the clause would bring cases where the award of land was underway or possession had not taken place within the scope of compensatory and acquisition norms.

This clause had come in for flak from industry then as it meant the new compensatory and acquisition norms would escalate the cost manifolds.

The Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2011 was introduced in parliament in September last year and was referred to a parliamentary standing committee, which submitted its recommendation in May this year.

It is likely to be rechristened as the Right to Compensation, Resettlement, Rehabilitation and Transparency in Land Acquisition Bill.