A K Bhattacharya: A pragmatic approach

RAISINA HILL

The West Bengal leadership finally seems to be more transparent on its rehabilitation and compensation policy.

Why is the West Bengal government worried over the adverse publicity the state continues to receive over the land acquisition controversy arising out of the proposed small cars plant of Tata Motors at Singur and a chemical complex at Nandigram? There could be two reasons. One, the media's expectations from the West Bengal government on governance and how it should handle popular protests over large industrial projects are high. Two, investment commitments of over Rs 50,000 crore are at stake and the state government cannot afford such adverse publicity.

The perception from Writer's Building, headquarters of the West Bengal government, is that the media has paid disproportionately higher attention to a few deaths at Nandigram and some incidents at Singur than it did for incidents in Chattisgarh or Orissa, where a substantially larger number of people were killed. This may not be entirely true. And even if it were, the fact is that the media surely expected from the Left Front government in West Bengal a better and more mature handling of the troubles at Singur and Nandigram over the local residents' fears arising out of land acquisition. It was a failure both administratively and politically. The state administration was not proactive enough to anticipate the trouble over land acquisition and take necessary precautionary steps. Nor did the political leadership recognise the potential mischief that the state's opposition political parties can cause in the wake of those controversies. So, why blame the media for focussing on the problems at Singur and Nandigram?

The more serious cause for concern is on account of the huge investments that the West Bengal government has managed to attract in the last few years. New investments in the state have been around Rs 2,500-3,000 crore a year in the last three-four years. This year, fresh investments might cross Rs 5,000 crore. Over the next decade, the annual investment figure will go up rapidly as the state has already got investment commitments worth Rs 50,000 crore. If, however, problems over Singur and Nandigram get more complicated, prospects of fresh investments will suffer. And the Left Front's plans to revive industrial investment in West Bengal might receive a major blow. There is near-unanimity among the senior leadership in the Left Front government that increased industrialisation of the state is the way forward to increase job opportunities.

The leadership also recognises the need for implementing a more transparent policy on rehabilitation and compensation for those who lose land as a result of setting up large industrial projects. It is pragmatic enough to understand that there cannot be a fixed model of compensation for all types of industrial projects. If a project is being set up by a newly floated company, the possibility of offering shares of that company to those who lose land can be explored. Similarly, as in the case of the Singur plant, the entire area to be handed over to Tata Motors was redrawn so that fewer farmers lost their land. And if Nandigram was mishandled giving rise to major problems, the government was quick to announce that no such project will be considered in that area.

The short point is that the Left Front leadership has shown a commendable degree of pragmatism in handling such problems. What's more, it has now begun a process of advance consultation with the people who may be affected by such projects and the opposition political parties in the state. For instance, it is in consultation with the opposition political parties on the proposed four-lane highway project to connect North Bengal with Kolkata. The project to revive the IISCO plant has also been a subject of consultation with leaders of opposition political parties. Gone is the arrogance that one sensed in the way Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's government dealt with the Nandigram and Singur issues. There is an attempt to hold more discussions over such projects within the Left Front partners, in a belated recognition of the fact that this after all is a coalition government. The larger concern that Bengal's industrialisation programme should not be allowed to derail has brought about a new consultative approach.

The lessons that the Left Front government has learnt in West Bengal are relevant also for the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre. The difference is that no one in the UPA government has as yet shown signs of recognising the importance of consulting the various stakeholders in the system before deciding on infrastructure projects "" be they special economic zones or the mega power projects.