The Second Schedule: Rehabilitation and Resettlement Entitlements

The Second Schedule is the Act's social contract in table form: the entitlements every affected family can claim, housing, land where land is the loss, a livelihood choice of employment, lump sum or annuity, and the allowances that carry a household through displacement. The figures below are the Schedule's own minima, improvable by the scheme, never reducible. This note works through the elements with their standard amounts.

1. Housing

The displaced rural family: a constructed house per the specifications of the rural housing programme (the Indira Awaas Yojana standard as the Schedule was framed), for families displaced from the affected area, including those without homestead land who have been residing there for the Schedule's qualifying period.
The displaced urban family: a constructed house of not less than 50 square metres plinth area.
Cash in lieu: the Schedule permits the house's benefit to be taken as a one-time financial assistance where the family so opts as it provides, with the house offer the default.
Free of encumbrance: the house and site are provided on the Schedule's terms, with stamp duty and registration fees for the allotted house and land borne by the Requiring Body.

2. Land and Livelihood

Land for land in irrigation projects: where land is acquired for an irrigation project, each affected family owning agricultural land and losing it receives, as far as possible, one acre of land in the command area of the project; for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe affected families, the Schedule's standard is land equivalent to the land acquired or two and a half acres, whichever is lower, the Act's one surviving land-for-land guarantee.
Developed land in urbanisation acquisitions: where land is acquired for urbanisation purposes, 20% of the developed land is reserved and offered to the owning affected families, in proportion to their land acquired, at a price equal to the cost of acquisition plus the cost of development, the owner buys back into the city built on his field.
The livelihood triad: where jobs are created through the project, mandatory employment for at least one member per affected family, or, at the family's option, a one-time payment of five lakh rupees, or an annuity of two thousand rupees per month per family for twenty years, indexed to the consumer price index for agricultural labourers, the choice architecture that lets a family pick wages, capital or pension.

3. The Allowances

Entitlement	The Schedule's standard	Who takes it
Subsistence grant	3,000 rupees per month for one year from the award	Each affected family displaced; SC and ST displaced families take the Schedule's additional amount
Transportation allowance	50,000 rupees, one time	Each displaced family, for shifting the household, belongings and cattle
Resettlement allowance	50,000 rupees, one time	Each affected family, as the Schedule provides
Cattle shed or petty shop	25,000 rupees, one time	Each affected family having a cattle shed or petty shop on the acquired land
Artisans, small traders and the self-employed	25,000 rupees minimum, one time	Each affected family of an artisan, small trader or self-employed person whose establishment the acquisition takes
Fishing rights	Rights in the reservoir, as the scheme provides	Affected families in irrigation and hydel projects

4. Reading the Schedule

Minima, not maxima: the appropriate Government and the scheme may provide better entitlements; the Schedule is the floor beneath which no scheme, award or agreement may go, and Section 108 lets a State's more beneficial law or policy prevail for the affected family's benefit.
Displacement switches on the household items: the house, subsistence, transportation and resettlement entitlements key to the displaced family; the livelihood triad and the artisan grant key to affected status, so a family may hold different combinations, and the Section 31 award must particularise which.
Indexation and revision: the annuity carries its CPI indexation, and the money figures, framed in 2013, are revisable as the Act and rules provide, the Schedule's figures are the statutory baseline the practitioner quotes, checked against any State enhancement.
Enforcement: every item lands in the family's Section 31 award, is payable before possession where monetary, and is referable to the LARR Authority, the Schedule is justiciable line by line.

⚠ Key point

The Second Schedule's floor: a constructed house (rural programme standard; urban not less than 50 sq m); one acre in the command area in irrigation projects (SC/ST: up to 2.5 acres); 20% of developed land at cost in urbanisation acquisitions; the livelihood choice of employment, 5 lakh, or a 2,000-rupee indexed annuity for 20 years; 3,000 monthly subsistence for a year; 50,000 transportation; 50,000 resettlement; 25,000 cattle shed or shop; 25,000 minimum for artisans and traders; fishing rights; stamp duty on the Requiring Body. Minima improvable, never reducible, and each item enforceable through the Section 31 award.

5. Related Topics and Provisions

The R&R award (Topic 47): where the entitlements are decreed
The Third Schedule (Topic 49): the resettlement area's amenities
SC and ST safeguards (Topic 52): the enhanced layer
Gender and R&R (Topic 111): entitlements and the woman-headed family