SHILLONG: Union Minister of State for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) Dr. Jitendra Singh has defended the land acquisition bill brought by the BJP-led Government at the Centre saying that the government has brought the best possible bill that could have been brought up to safeguard the interest of the farmers.
Singh alleged that those who have accused the NDA government for coming up with the bill are doing it simply for the sake of criticism.
“I want to clarify that it is the same bill proposed by the previous UPA-II Government. We have only improved and modified it. In addition, there are certain other provisions which have been brought in for the farmers. Earlier, farmers had to give evidence of 50 per cent plus of crop damages to claim compensation and now this cut off have been reduced to 30 per cent. Is this not pro-farmer?” the Union Minister questioned while talking to newspersons here on Tuesday.
While claiming that the NDA Government has been able to improve the growth rate of the country, Singh said, “Under the leadership of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the country’s growth rate was 8.4% but when we came back after 10 years it had come down to around 4%.”
“Within one year we have raised it to 5.6% and we are now going to touch almost 7%,” he added.
Informing that the present government led by Narendra Modi had completed one year on Tuesday, he said that the prime minister had announced in his maiden speech that his government would be dedicated to the people of the country.
“It is with this commitment in mind that the prime minister has come up with the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana which has the provision for anybody to open an account without any deposit. This is a noble initiative since to open a normal account one had to run from pillar to post. We have so far already successfully started about 15 crore accounts,” Singh said.
