Shyamal Majumdar: The Left school of management

HUMAN FACTOR

The Singur incident showed there is no alternative to listening to people.

Barely a week after leading the Left Front to a massive win in the West Bengal Assembly elections, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee faced flak from his predecessor Jyoti Basu for forgetting one of the most basic principles of management: successful CEOs must never forget to take into confidence people lower down the ladder. And the basic reason for moving towards such people's involvement is not because it's nicer to do that, but because it gets you results.

Basu had reacted sharply against the chief minister after a team of Tata Motors executives were heckled at Singur in West Bengal's Hooghly district when they went for an inspection of the proposed site for the small car plant last week. The project, to be spread over 1,000 acres with another 300 kept aside for ancillary production, will create 10,000 jobs, direct and indirect.

But the reasons for the protests and the way the state government diffused a potentially explosive situation could be a perfect case study for what experts call participative style of management.

First, the mistake the chief minister made in handling the delicate task of acquiring land for industry. The government didn't make any effort to communicate with the local villagers or address their concerns before giving the green signal to the Tata Motors team to visit the proposed site. The total lack of concern was evident from the fact that a local leader of the party was sleeping at home when the trouble took place. Also there is a whole village of about 150-200 houses that feared that it will be evicted, but there was no commitment forthcoming from the government on the exact site dimensions or the likely compensations.

Left leaders admit there was a communication gap. "When we were finalising the deal with the Tatas, the Assembly election was on and there was little time to interact with the farmers. We should have realised that the farmers would be wary of any move to acquire their land unless they are informed about what they would get in exchange," one of them said.

The villagers were not the only ones feeling let down. Agriculture Minister Naren De (an MLA from the same district where the plant will be located) was also sulking because he wasn't consulted on the issue and didn't even know which land in Singur is going to be acquired for the project. In short, the government's failure to take the local stakeholders into confidence led to a communication collapse and wild rumours.

To the chief minister's credit, he acted swiftly (within two days of the Singur incident) to ensure that the protests in the rugged outback along the state-of-the-art Durgapur Expressway remain just an isolated incident. First, he organised meetings with the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation brass, top district officials and local politicians to understand the local realities better. One of the key findings of such meetings was that the plots where the car plant is slated to come up are very rich and fertile, growing two to three and sometimes four crops a year. The action taken was fast: farmers whose land come under the proposed site will get 30 per cent more than the market value of the land. They will also receive 12 per cent interest from the date of agreement to the final settlement. In addition, they will be paid an additional 10 per cent if they avoid going for litigation.

The second step was communication "" the key element missing so far. The government directed the Krishak Sabha, the peasant's wing of the CPI-M, and the panchayats to start holding small group meetings to make farmers understand how they will benefit more if they give land and take compensation. The CPI-M district secretariat has also got into the act and has decided to hold regular joint workshops with WBIDC to address concerns on the project as well as its benefits.

The preparations that went into these presentations (these were done within a couple of days) were stupendous. Sample this presentation: In an area under double-cropping in West Bengal, the net annual income from an acre of land is around Rs 10,000 to Rs 13,000. If an acre of this land is acquired and the farmer paid the market value as per the Land Acquisition Act, the amount of compensation due in a district maybe as high as Rs 13 lakh, which if kept under a fixed deposit could generate an interest income of more than Rs 1 lakh per annum. Even if one included the value of family labour, the interest surplus to the land-loser still remains significant.

The Singur lesson of participative management would come in handy for a government that has to acquire 31,750 acres for industry in the next six months.