Rehabilitation and Resettlement under the Act: An Overview

Rehabilitation and resettlement is what the 2013 Act added to Indian law that no amendment of the 1894 Act could have: a statutory right, for every affected family, to have a life rebuilt and not merely a parcel priced. This overview opens Part E: the philosophy, who is entitled, the instruments that deliver, the officers who administer, the timings that bind, and the reach of R&R beyond acquisition into large private purchase.

1. From Policy to Right

For six decades, rehabilitation was policy: the 2003 and 2007 national policies stated entitlements no one could sue on, and project packages varied with political weather. The 2013 Act converts the subject into law with three structural choices. One statute: acquisition and R&R live in a single Act, so no land can be taken on a promise to rehabilitate later; the scheme precedes the declaration, and the entitlements gate possession. A wide class: R&R runs to the affected family, the six-limbed definition that includes the landless labourer, the tenant, the artisan, the forest dweller and the urban livelihood loser, so the right follows the loss, not the title. Money plus restoration: the Second Schedule's entitlements mix cash with housing, land, employment and infrastructure, on the preamble's promise that affected persons emerge partners in development, with improved, not merely compensated, circumstances.

2. The Instruments

3. The Administration and the Timings

• The officers: the Administrator for R&R (scheme-maker), the Commissioner for R&R (supervisor and approver, with the post-implementation social audit), and, for acquisitions of 100 acres or more, the project-level R&R Committee under the Collector with affected-family, women's and local representation (Topics 55 and 56).
• The monitors: the National Monitoring Committee for Central-level oversight and the State-level machinery the Act and rules add (Topic 59), rehabilitation is the one subject the Act refuses to leave to the acquiring office's self-assessment.
• The timings: the scheme carries its own implementation time limit; the monetary entitlements are paid or tendered before possession within the Act's windows from the award; and the infrastructural entitlements, the resettlement area's amenities, are completed within the Act's longer window, so the family is not moved to a field and promised a village.
• Special protection: Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes carry additional entitlements and process (Sections 41 and 42): development plans, Gram Sabha consent in Scheduled Areas, preference for resettlement within the same Scheduled Area, and enhanced benefits (Topics 52 and 53).

4. Reading Part E

The chapters ahead take the machinery in order: the R&R award (Topic 47), the Second Schedule's entitlements item by item (Topic 48), the Third Schedule's twenty-five amenities (Topic 49), infrastructure and multiple-displacement protection (Topics 50 and 51), the SC and ST safeguards (Topics 52 to 54), the administration (Topics 55 and 56), R&R in private purchases (Topics 57 and 58), the monitors (Topic 59) and the 2007 policy legacy (Topic 60). The organising question throughout is the one the preamble asks: after the project, is the affected family better off, and the honest answer, visible in the implementation record Topic 124 confronts, is that the law's design outruns its delivery, which is exactly why the design must be known precisely.

5. Related Topics and Provisions

• The R&R scheme (Topic 28): the planning stage already covered
• The R&R award (Topic 47): the right individuated
• The Second Schedule (Topic 48): the entitlements in detail
• Critical evaluation (Topic 124): design against delivery