Till about two years ago, Amar Ghosh, a property dealer in Singur, had his phone lines busy with calls from property websites, big industrialists as well as small-time speculators interested in buying land near Tata Motors’ small call factory site.
These days, a query for land in Singur would be a surprise for Ghosh.
Even the websites have stopped updating land price information on the area, he laments. His advertisements for sale of 550 acre in Singur did not evoke a single response in the last two months.
In contrast, Ghosh had brokered sale of 250 acres in the last two years.
In 2005-2006, when the Nano project was conceived in Singur, the land price in the area was Rs 3-5 lakh per acre.
By 2007, prices had skyrocketed to Rs 25-30 lakh per acre.
In August 2008, the prices further escalated to Rs 50-60 lakh per acre on the National Highway-2 (NH-2), and then the confrontation between the state government and the Trinamool Congress hit the project. This led to stalling of the project work from the night of August 28.
With the fate of Tata Motors’ Nano project in Singur still uncertain, the property bubble in the area looked likely to end.
Real estate developers, who had bought land a few years ago anticipating rapid development due to the ambitious small car project, are now expecting the development to be much slower.
As a result, land registration deals have slowed to a trickle.
Singur locals fear the worst, both in the short term and beyond. Most of them had sold their land to the developers, hoping to use the proceeds from the sale in start-up ventures that would ride on the expected surge in the pace of development around the car plant.
“Our families were looking at four income options from the plant,” said Jayanta Mandal, a supporter of the ruling CPI (M) in Singur.
According to him, some local boys had hit pay dirt by supplying sand, stone chips and fly ash for landfill at the plant, while others were earning as labourers at the site before work was stopped.
Nearly 100 local boys had received specialised training and had joined work inside the factory complex as rookies, while the less skilled people were working at the many guest houses being used by Tata Motors staff.
“Do you know many women were earning Rs 80 a day by selling lunch to the factory workers?” said an agitated Paresh Maity from the area.
Even Trinamool leaders have admitted that Singur would be impacted if the Tatas leave, but not too much.
“I want the Tata plant too but I am not too desperate — the problems of the locals have to be solved and the future of the unfortunate people who lost their land has to be secured,” said Shefali Malik, a Trinamool leader and a panchayat office bearer.
Singur town itself displayed all the signs of sudden prosperity with many huts converted into two-storied buildings.
In Kolkata, Abhijit Das, regional head, Jones Lang LaSalle Meghraj, said there might be about 8-10 real estate developers who have aggregated land in Singur, but are holding back their decision before legally registering the property.
The land transactions have reduced by four-five times beginning this year, said Das.
“Prices may see some correction but because of excellent connectivity provided by the National Highway, and industrial development in Asansol and Bardhamaan, land prices might not fall despite a 100 per cent increase in the last three years,” said Das.
Singur and adjoining areas are likely to see a total freeze in land transactions in the short term owing to loss of interest in the area.
Santosh Rungta, chairman of the Rungta group, a Kokata-based real estate developer, had planned to set up an IT, housing and biotechnology park in Singur.
“We had purchased a small piece of land in Singur. Now we are waiting for the situation to improve. If the Tata Motors’ project does not come up, no one will buy land from us in the area. We will have to keep the land as it is now,” said Rungta.
More than big real estate developers, small investors had bigger stakes in Singur, as many had taken loans to buy land in the area.
“We had bought small piece of land opposite the Tata Motor’s factory site. We had plans either to build warehouse, hotel or residential complex. We even had talks with auto-ancillary vendors here for building a housing complex and had paid Rs 2 lakh to an architect. Now we will be ruined if Tatas walk out of the project,” said Biswajit Lahiri, manager, Aparna International Ltd.
