The Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry has compiled a draft bill that would expedite expropriations of land for dams, roads and other public works projects, ministry sources said Wednesday.
The Cabinet is expected to approve the amendment to the Land Expropriation Law on Tuesday and submit it to the Diet soon afterward.
The draft aims to simplify procedures required before the central or local governments can expropriate privately held land for public works projects.
The government entities planning such projects must submit files on the plots they want to expropriate to land expropriation panels to get approval.
Under the draft, the files would be allowed to be completed without landowners' signatures after drafts of the files are made available to the public for one month, provided the land is owned by more than 100 owners.
Additionally, if there are multiple landowners, prefectural land expropriation panels can ask them to choose between one and three representatives in order to simplify the panels' deliberations on whether to allow the expropriations, the draft says.
The draft, however, also requires that the central and local governments explain their public works projects to landowners before they apply to authorities for the green light.
The governments would be obliged to disclose their project goals and to hear opinions from advisory bodies.
The measures were drafted following protests by residents and environmentalists of a number of public works projects, resulting in delays in the necessary land expropriations to complete the projects.
As of 1999, it took up to three years to get final approval from land expropriation panels.