Singur offer comes as a damper for farmers

The West Bengal government today announced a rehabilitation package for those who have lost land to the Tata Motors' small car project in Singur.

The package aims to prepare the displaced to benefit from the industrialisation in the area and does not offer higher compensation amount, as was being widely expected.

State Commerce and Industry Minister Nirupam Sen, announcing the package, ruled out returning land (330 acres) to the farmers who have not accepted cheques.

Sen also rejected the demand for settling the Singur villagers on alternative land. "We cannot acquire land from one farmer to give it to another. This has no logic," he said.

The package entails training women for catering services and men for jobs like driving. NIIT would impart computer skills to the displaced. So far, 2,851 people have enrolled for various training programmes.

Around 350 people being trained in technical institutes would get jobs in the mother plant, while the state government would provide livelihood to the farmers whose only source of income was agriculture, according to the package.

"The idea is to train people before the factory goes onstream. They will be employable anywhere after that," said Sen.

At an interface organised by the Prabha Khaitan Foundation, Sen said refusing land to Tata Motors would have been a "Himalayan blunder".

On Friday, veteran Left leader and Politburo member Jyoti Basu had said that the Singur package would be exemplary.

Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee said this was not a package for the people. She announced the party would observe "Kalankamochan Divas" on June 21, when the Left Front completes 30 years in power.

The state government has already handed over 645 acres to Tata Motors and signed agreements with 30-35 vendors associated with the project.

Tata Motors said the Singur project to manufacture Rs one lakh car did not have any foreign equity participation, as alleged by Banerjee. "The project at Singur is entirely of Tata Motors," a company executive said.

According to a PTI report, the NDA today sought President APJ Abdul Kalam's intervention to stop what it called a "genocide" in Nandigram.

A three-member NDA delegation led by convenor George Fernandes met the President and told him that CPI(M) workers had "unleashed a reign of terror" in Nandigram, where farmers are agitating against land acquisition for an SEZ.