About 2,300 permanent railway jobs to lay a 19-km track.
This was the price the Railways would have to pay for acquisition of land between Furfura Sharif and Dankuni in the Hooghly district of West Bengal where the 'job-for-land' policy formulated by former railway minister Mamata Banerjee was put to test for the first time.
But the near-impossible task has prompted Railways to finally give it up. It has, instead, asked the West Bengal government to acquire land for the construction of the broad-gauge line, raising questions on the rationale of the policy.
“The problem is how can the Railways provide jobs to so many people. We will require hardly 800 people to run the service in the area,” said a Railways official, requesting anonymity.
Following a request from the Railways authorities, the Bengal government has taken up the responsibility for land acquisition. "This is a special case. Our land policy allows the government to acquire land for public sector projects with issues such as security, national disaster, construction of roads and bridges and development of Railways," West Bengal Industry Minister Partha Chatterjee said.
But officials are clueless whether the “job-for-land” scheme will remain tenable, if the land is acquired by the state.
“The Railways had already started the acquisition process in some parts and job offers have also been provided to over 100 land losers. Involvement of the state administration may smoothen the process, but we cannot avoid the scheme, especially in this case,” said the official.
Many big-ticket projects like coach factories in Rae Bareli (Uttar Pradesh) and Marhaura (Bihar) and a wheel factory in Bihar’s Chapra are also stuck over the same reason, even though land acquisition took place in these projects much before the policy was announced in 2010. But after announcement of the scheme, land-losers have reportedly been approaching the Railways for jobs, which has eventually stalled all these projects.
Union Railways Minister Mukul Roy was, however, not ready to accept any flaw in the policy formulated by his predecessor and party chief, Mamata Banerjee. “The state will acquire the land for the Dunkuni project and jobs will also be offered as promised. Whatever problems we have in other places, we are working it out with respective state governments,” he said recently on a query on the same.
Unlike Roy, many in the his ministry believe the problem lies in the policy itself. Under the policy, one member of each family whose land was acquired will be given a permanent job besides compensation at market price. As per the policy, it was stated the job provided to land losers would be in the pay scale of Rs 5,200-20,200 with a grade pay of Rs 1,800. This means a land loser will get Group-C category job, for which the starting pay would be a little above Rs 10,000.
Pointing out the fact that there is no guideline over the “minimum size of land” that would make a land loser eligible for a Railways job, a senior official in the railway ministry said: “I personally think the scheme needs to be re-worked. Even a person with a very small holding is eligible for a job. Also, this has led to illegal practices over transaction of land where railway projects are coming up.”
This is what happened in the case of the Furfura Sharif-Dankuni railway track project as well,where the holding is even less than a cottah in some cases, resulting in many number of applicants.
