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Sanjiv Sinha
NEW DELHI, Nov 2: The proposal to scrap the Urban Land Ceiling Regulation Act (ULCRA) through an ordinance appears to have been once again put into cold storage, with the government doing a volte face on the issue.
Sources said that the cabinet, at its meeting on the issue last week, decided to drop the proposal for an ordinance altogether and leave the fate of the 22-year-old Act to Parliament.
What apparently triggered the decision to scuttle the ordinance proposal, sources said, was the apprehension that the President might refuse to sign the ULCRA ordinance on the grounds that it violated the Election Commission's code of conduct. Coming after the President's refusal to accept the cabinet's decision to impose President's rule in Bihar, the Government did not want to risk any further embarrassment.
Speaking to The Indian Express today, Union Urban Affairs Minister Ram Jethmalani said that the ordinance proposal had to be abandoned since the government felt that its promulgation at this timewould violate the Election Commission's code of conduct and also attract unnecessary controversy in view of the forthcoming assembly elections and the winter session of Parliament.
The minister, who has been campaigning for the urgent repeal of ULCRA, admitted that the decision was a setback to the much-vaunted housing boom in the country but hoped that Parliament would scrap the Act in the coming winter session. (The bill calling for the repeal of ULCRA has been pending with the standing committee on urban affairs since July this year).
Jethmalani said that since the repeal of the act was now in the hands of Parliament, his ministry would try make all efforts to have the repeal bill cleared in the coming winter session so that it could be in place by early next year at the earliest.
``It is unfortunate that the proposal to scrap ULCRA has run into so many problems and unnecessarily delayed, especially when there is near unanimity on it among all coalition partners in the government and even among themajor opposition parties,'' he said.
The Government's decision to drop the ordinance proposal, however, means an end to any quick methods to repeal ULCRA. The Act's end will now depend on how quickly the Parliament can decide on the bill pending before it.
Soon after it came to power in March this year, the Government had toyed with the idea of ending ULCRA through an ordinance but it soon dropped the proposal since the Parliament session was round the corner. The bill was introduced in Parliament in July this year soon referred to the standing committee on urban affairs after protests against it by sections of the opposition.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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