With just two days left for unwilling farmers of Singur to avail of the special incentive offered in the revised rehabilitation package of the West Bengal government, the response, so far, appears to be tepid.
Around 50 unwilling farmers have submitted applications for accepting the package, out of a total 2,200 awardees, while 15 have collected cheques. However, in terms of unique landowners, the number of unpaid farmers would be around 1,000. Some of them have an ownership dispute and hence the actual number of unique unpaid landowners eligible for compensation is not known. “That will be known only on verification of documents,” said government sources.
The deadline for unwilling farmers to avail of the 10 per cent special incentive is September 22 but they can submit applications even beyond that date.
It is not just unwilling farmers, willing farmers have claimed that if land is returned from the project site, then it should go to its original owner.
Government sources said that 47 applications by willing farmers were submitted to the Singur land committee formed under the aegis of governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi on September 9. Another 110 applications were submitted on September 10, making the same points.
The applications reinforce the state government stand. The West Bengal government was not in favour of returning land but wanted to hand over a land-based rehabilitation package for willing and unwilling farmers.
Sources said that in the applications, the willing farmers pointed out that they had given land voluntarily for the Tata Motors project but were not in favour of their land being handed over to some other farmer.
The West Bengal government has offered 70 acres from the Tata Motors project, of which 47 acres is with the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) and the rest is a water body, as part of the rehabilitation package.
