The legal wranglings holding up the return of land in Singur by Tata Motors to West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) have added to political tensions in the town.
The affected land losers comprise around 13,000 families, including land owners, registered sharecroppers (called bargadars) and registered agricultural labourers.
Of these, around 2,000 had launched an agitation led by the Trinamool Congress (TC) against acquisition of 300 acres of their land by the government for the small car factory, and subsequently forced Tata Motors to abandon the project.
Opposing this group were Left Front sympathisers, numbering about 11,000 families, who had accepted compensation and had given up the rest of the 997-acre plot willingly for the project.
“The 16-17 per cent of the families here, owning around 30 per cent of the land and claiming to have lost around 300 acres to the project site, represent the reactionary, large landowning class blocking development,” alleged a CPI(M) card holder at the Singur party office.
Located close to the office of the local block development officer, the CPI(M) leader claimed the enthusiasm of the willing land losers (who were in a majority) was overwhelming when compensation cheques were handed out by WBIDC acquiring the land for the project.
“The majority decision has been reversed by the small group of rich landowners,” he alleged, but refused to blame the Left government for the failure to tackle the local agitation.
The TC group, led by local leader Becharam Manna, said it wants the 300 acres owned by its supporters back from the government.
“We want the 300 acres back — let industry come up on the balance land,” said TC sources in Kolkata.
After the exit of Tata Motors from the project site, the Left has lost both local and state legislature elections from the area, with TC winning both times.
To counter this, the old tirade between the Left and large landowners has resurfaced, said the TC source, adding, “The impoverished peasantry of Singur does not fit into the automated car factory planned by Tatas.”
“We failed to convince everybody that industry is much better than agriculture, and then the opposition launched its anti-industry drive,” admitted the Left leader.
According to TC, the compensation paid by the government through WBIDC to willing land losers has vanished because it has been used up for domestic consumption that has led to further poverty.
For the people living in and around the Singur area, time has gone back by a few years since the departure of Tata Motors from the factory site set up on their farmland. Singur town, 40 km from Kolkata, is an old and prosperous one like many other satellite urban clusters.
The town’s winding lanes are as packed and chaotic as ever, and many shops are still doing brisk business.
As shopkeeper and motorcycle agent Sibdas Roy puts it, many in Singur bought a motorbike after landing a job in Kolkata or some nearby factory, and initially used it on weekends till they could afford petrol for daily use, but few got jobs at the Tata factory.
So who gained from the Nano factory built on the farmland taken over from the 13,000-odd owners residing in the town and neighbouring hamlets with quaint names like Bajemelia?
One clear category is house owners living close to the highway, that is, on the approach road to the town from the four-lane National Highway 2 on which the factory was being built.
They had built additional rooms and taken in people like migrant supervisors, workers and security guards, as well as others linked to the factory from all ranks.
These tenants or paying guests had benefited from the proximity of their accommodation and were happy to pay between Rs 1,500 and Rs 2,500 per month.
“It was precious money for us as we are rich in resources like self-grown rice and potato, but always a little short of cash in hand,” said Ashish Marjit.
The other category comprises a group of young men of all political colours who had formed co-operative supplier bodies, oddly called “syndicates” by locals.
Some had bought locally assembled Chinese diesel engine-fitted rickshaws to shuttle people between Singur town and the station, and the factory site.
Others supplied goods like food items, sand, stone chips and construction wire rods in and around the site area.
For them the departure of Tata was a disaster.
Tomorrow: Vendors, WBIDC may hold talks for return of land
