Row over Nala Act ends as Governor gives nod to Bill

The row over the Non-agricultural Land Assessment (NALA) Act amendments finally ended on Thursday with Governor ESL Narasimhan giving his assent to the Bill.

VIJAYAWADA: The row over the Non-agricultural Land Assessment (NALA) Act amendments finally ended on Thursday with Governor ESL Narasimhan giving his assent to the Bill. According to sources, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu had sent a letter to the Raj Bhavan on Wednesday evening aasuring that his government would address all the concerns raised by the Governor and the latter is understood to have responded in the affirmative.

Keeping in view the growing demand for the reduction of NALA tax from realtors as well as industrialists, the government finally came out with the Bill to amend the Act for reducing the tax and also to simplify the procedure for conversion of agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes. The AP Legislative Assembly passed the Bill in the recent monsoon session and sent it for the Governor’s assent.

The amendment Bill proposes to reduce NALA tax from the existing 5 per cent to 2 per cent under the jurisdiction of Vijayawada Municipal Corporation and Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation and from 9 per cent to 3 per cent elsewhere in the State.

However, officials of the Raj Bhavan raised certain objections, particularly on the lack of any monitoring mechanism. The Raj Bhavan was apprehensive as the Bill did not talk of any mechanism to check abuse of the Act in case of a stranger paying Nala fee to convert land belong to some others for non-agricultural purposes. The Chief Minister in his letter assured the Raj Bhavan that he would see to it that the monitoring mechanism would be in place.

Reacting to the allegations of BJP floor leader P Vishnu Kumar Raju that Narasimhan gave his approval to a similar Bill submitted to him by Telangana without any questions while adopting a step-motherly attitude towards AP, Raj Bhavan sources said the Telangana Nala Bill had not reached them yet. There is no need for TS to seek the Governor’s nod as its Assembly adopted the Act that existed in undivided AP.

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