The impasse at Singur caused by the indefinite protest in front of Tata Motors Nano-manufacturing plant by the Trinamool Congress and its allies under Mamata Banerjee seemed to have moved closer to a resolution today even as Tata Motors indicated it would not send its workers and officers to the plant site on September 1.
A week into the indefinite blockade, Banerjee sent a delegation to state Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi seeking to shift some facilities to the other side of the highway — a point she had made earlier — but also, critically, expressing a willingness for a settlement brokered through mediation by a person, who was neither from industry or politics.
Trinamool sources said this would ensure that the 2,200-odd families who had lost their land to the project to make the world’s cheapest car but had not accepted compensation — the focus of the protest — could be rehabilitated.
This was the first time the Trinamool has responded to an invitation for talks and indicated the conditions under which such discussions could be held. The governor had written to Banerjee asking her to consider talking to the government to end the impasse.
The Trinamool Congress indicated on August 30 that the government should send a letter stating that it accepted “in principle” that land could be returned to those unwilling farmers, who had not accepted compensation for the land acquired as part of the 997-acre plot.
This was indicated by party lawyer Kalyan Banerjee, and was the first time that a senior Trinamool leader had come out with an indication on how the government could end the protest at Singur.
According to sources in the Trinamool Congress, the party would give Tata Motors complete freedom to choose the area inside the 997-acre plot for its factory, but areas earmarked for social infrastructure like schools, clubs, retail space, etc. could be returned to farmers.
In Kolkata, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee repeated that the state government could not return land under the 1892 land acquisition law that the state government had invoked to acquire it.
Bhattacharjee made the comments at a Left Front rally at Netaji Indoor Stadium, a few hundred metres from the Raj Bhavan, where Banerjee’s delegation was meeting the governor at around the same time.
Mamata Banerjee was pinning her hopes on the state’s land acquisition manual of 1991, which stated that land acquired by the state could be returned giving preference to the original owners if it so decided, but only if the original owners returned any compensation they had accepted.
According to the Trinamool, this proved the state government was taking shelter by subterfuge by claiming it could not return land once acquired as laid out in the 1892 British era Act.
Banerjee’s demand that the ancillary units be shifted across the road was greeted with some apprehension by the three units contacted by Business Standard.
While declining to be named, the three admitted that the units could be located a short distance away but the issues now were timely commissioning and the cost of starting construction at a site that had not yet been surveyed.
“Cost-competitiveness and the deadline for the October launch are the problems facing us,” said one vendor.
The question facing Tata Motors and its vendors today was resuming work at the site from September 1 after two days of obstruction at the site and the weekly holiday today.
Vendors appeared to be positive about resuming work and getting workers in, but sources indicated that Tata Motors would ask its officers and workers to report for in-house programmes on September 1 but not attempt to enter the plant site unless it was clear they would not face resistance.
On August 28 night, Tata workers had been barricaded inside the plant site by political groups affiliated to Trinamool, led by Anuradha Talwar, and permitted to go home only around midnight though the shift had ended at 5pm.
“We will try to restart work on Monday and see what happens. If the workers are stopped or prevented from working, a decision would have to be taken then,” said a vendor setting up its unit at the site.
At present, 30 of 55 ancillary units scheduled to come up at the site, roughly an hour’s drive from Kolkata, have started construction, with the Caparo and Tata Ryerson plants having made the most progress.
In contrast, Exide Industries had decided not to set up a factory at the site to supply batteries and related equipment because it had a plant at Shyamnagar, 30 km from Singur and found it could supply the items without having to invest there.
