India News | Gujarat Assembly Passes Bill on Time Limit for Trusts to Apply for NA Conversion of Land

Gandhinagar, Feb 1 (PTI) The Gujarat Assembly on Thursday unanimously passed a bill empowering the state government to extend the time limit for trusts and other charitable organisations to apply for conversion of their land for non-agricultural (NA) purposes.

The Gujarat Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Laws (Amendment) Bill 2014 was passed unanimously after the opposition Congress and Aam Aadmi Party supported it with a note of caution that the new provision should not help those who run their trusts for the sole purpose of making money.

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The bill was tabled by Labour, Skill Development and Employment minister Balvantsinh Rajput on behalf of Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel.

At present, there are three different tenancy laws in operation in the state, namely the Gujarat Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act 1948, the Gujarat Tenancy and Agricultural Lands (Vidarbh Region and Kutch Area) Act 1958 and the Saurashtra Gharkhed, Tenancy Settlement and Agricultural Lands Ordinance 1949.

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"These three laws provide that registered trusts and charitable organisations are entitled to apply for conversion of their land to non-agricultural purposes if the land in question is purchased by them on or before June 2015," the minister told the House.

The state government had amended these laws twice and extended the time limit to allow these organisations to apply for NA conversion by paying a specific amount, Rajput said.

"As per the last amendment made in 2019, such trusts were given a time frame of one year, ending in August 2020, to apply for conversion of land purchased on or before June 2015. However, due to various reasons, many charitable institutions missed the opportunity and did not apply within that time limit," he said.

The state government decided to make necessary amendments in the present laws after charitable institutions made representations for increasing the time limit.

"Now, we are proposing that the state government will specify the time limit as and when required so that charitable institutions get time to apply for NA conversion," Rajput said in the Assembly.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)