Mamata Banerjee today hinted that the Trinamool Congress and its allies could resume the agitation for return of 300 acres inside the 997-acre Tata Motors Nano factory at Singur, and another 100 acres around it and around the Tata Motors factory because the government of West Bengal had violated the agreement it had reached with the Opposition at a meeting chaired by governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi on September 7.
Flashing copies of the agreement signed before the governor at a party rally in Singur today, she alleged the government had refused to allow the land examination committee to do its work though it was set up under the agreement signed in the presence of the governor by chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, industries minister Nirupam Sen and panchayat minister Surjya Kanta Mishra.
Sources in the CPI(M) told Business Standard that party sources from Singur had reported that five farmers had accepted the revised compensation offered by the state government from September 14. Mamata Banerjee, speaking at her rally at Singur today, claimed that the committee had surveyed the factory site and was to submit a report on the maximum amount of land inside the factory that was suitable for farming and could therefore be returned to unwilling 2200-odd farmers who had not accepted compensation though their land had been taken over for the plant.
Mamata Banerjee said her nominees on the committee, the Singur MLA Rabindranath Bhattacharjee and Singur leader Becharam Manna, convenor of the Krishi Jami Raksha Committee, would submit their report to the governor after his return on September 19, after which the party would decide on its future course of action.
Becharam Manna denied that farmers had accepted compensation under the revised package.
“Our members are not after a package- they want land”, he told Business Standard.
Also Read
The government, instead of honouring the September 7 agreement, had killed the land examination committee and instead announced its special rehabilitation package for the unwilling farmers through media advertisements on September 14, alleged Mamata Banerjee.
From September 14, the government had announced a special package for Singur farmers, offering 70 acres offered from the Tata Motors project site for public purpose.
Additional 50 per cent cash assistance was promised to landlosers and bargadars so that they could buy agricultural land of their choice.
Unrecorded bargadars to receive 300 days wages at NREGA rate, the state offer said.
The Bengal government promise a special 10 per cent incentive for unwilling landlosers if they accepted compensation within September 22, 2008.
The government promised to train and endeavour to provide direct or indirect employment for one person per project affected family having no regular employment or income and take up community development schemes in all project affected villages.
Mamata Banerjee also scored two brownie points over the government today.
Congress leader, Subrata Mukherjee, the mentor of Mamata Banerjee in her student days and former TC Mayor of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, joined her rally today though he had recently returned to the Congress.
Also, a group of intellectuals like artist Suvaprasanna and film personality Aparna Sen issued a statement condemning the “unethical” move of the government in rejecting the September 7 agreement and urging the return of land to unwilling farmers while also asking the Tatas to build the Nano in Bengal after respecting local opinion.