JSW Bengal Steel, the 10-million tonne steel project from the JSW Steel stable, is one of the few mega greenfield projects in the country — which would add 67 million tonnes in two years — to be sitting on 4,800 unencumbered acres.
Small wonder that the sixth largest steel maker of the world, JFE Steel Corporation, looking to be a part of the India growth story, may pick up stake in JSW’s special purpose vehicle (SPV) for the Bengal project, despite the state’s new found status of becoming a benchmark in agitation against land acquisition.
Bengal has two extreme cases: Singur, the erstwhile Tata Motors Nano project site, that saw one of the worst agitations against land acquisition, and Salboni, the JSW project site, sitting on everything from land to mines.
Salboni in West Medinipur — about 170 km from Kolkata — appears to be an oasis in the battle for land rights. Land losers are a happy lot.
“The interest we earn from the compensation money is much more than our income from the land. It is equivalent to five years of paddy harvest. In the last two years, everything has changed at Salboni. All the land losers have television at home, asbestos house roofs and mobile phones,” said land loser Sukhdev Mahato.
That’s the lifestyle change the West Bengal government has been campaigning for but had botched at both Singur and Nandigram, the erstwhile site for a chemical industry hub.
But at Salboni, the government officials, at least at the local level, acted right after the project was announced. Biswajit Mahato said, “The district magistrate held a seminar to explain the project and invite questions, immediately after we heard of the project.” Communication and connecting with the people is obviously one reason for the successful acquisition.
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Once the cheques were handed over, the banks swung into action. Punjab National Bank and State Bank of India organised camps and came and collected the cheques from the land losers. Not surprisingly, those at Salboni are even aware of the interest fluctuations.
And, the rehabilitation package for the 750 families affected was exemplary. Cash compensation, employment for at least one person per family losing land, and free shares at par, equivalent to the land price.
Biswadip Gupta, joint managing director and chief executive officer, JSW Bengal Steel, said: “We paid Rs 3 lakh per acre for land at Salboni.” That’s 275 per cent more than the going rate of Rs 80,000 an acre around the area at that time. Yet, the total land cost is about one per cent of the project cost of Rs 35,000 crore.
Many land losers had another bonus, as the project is behind schedule due to the downturn. Of the 450 acres of private land taken, they could farm on the single-crop land of 150 acres inside the project area.
“We are waiting for construction to start. That will mean that our children can work,” said Sukhdev Mahato, adding: “They can’t plough the fields with mobiles in their hands, they need jobs.”
The official stand is, the construction at Salboni will start once the 10-million tonne unit at Vijaynagar goes onstream in the first half of 2011. But, sources said, if JFE picked up a stake in the SPV, then work could start as early as next year.
For now, the land losers are waiting eagerly and willing to take on anyone who stands in the way, from the Trinamool Congress to the Naxalites.