Singur farmers want more for their land

The district authorities at Singur today started the paying farmers for acquisition of 1,000 acres for the Tata Motors' small car project.

However, many land owners present at the block office alleged that they were only getting compensation equal to the value of single-crop land, though their property had become dual crop or even triple-crop land because of advances in irrigation and farming techniques.

Thus, complaints about the valuation and recognition of land title marred the exercise. The farmers losing land either wanted more money or wanted to be paid as the rightful owners.

Some land owners alleged that the real land owners were not getting the compensation as the mutation process had not been completed on time, and people who had sold land sometime back were walking away with the payment because the buyers had not been able to transfer the land to their name on account of administrative inefficiency.

Bhuban Bagui, a resident of Singur whose family of nine owned 1.5 acres in the notified area, claimed he was earning more than Rs 1.4 lakh per year from his multi-crop land, growing potato, rice and jute. Multi-crop land is known as "Suna" land in local parlance, while Bagui claimed he was getting the compensation for "Sali," or low-yield land.

"They are valuing the land in accordance with records more than 50 years old, but since then, thanks to irrigation and other facilities, productivity has increased. But the government is not listening to that," he complained.

Bagui said his family was likely to get close to Rs 13 lakh as compensation under the valuation model. Interest income from that sum would be much less than the money he was making now, he claimed.

Sanjay Maiti's complaint was more complicated. He claimed his six-member family that owned around 1.5 bighas would get close to Rs 4.5 lakh because of a flawed payment model. His family would starve once the land was gone, he said.

He had no faith in the promise of the Left Front government that a member of each family losing land would get employment.

The district authorities have valued Sali land at Rs 900,000 per acre and Suna land at around Rs 12,50,000 per acre, including the solatium and bonus for consent award. Around 230 land owners had received payment out of the 800 that were eligible.