The Hindu Business Line : Put land acquisition for Tata project on hold: Mamata

SETTING TERMS: The Trinamool Congress leader, Ms Mamata Bannerjee, addressing a rally near Singur protesting land acquisition by the West Bengal Government for the proposed Tata Motors project. — Sushanta Patronobish

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Chanditala (Near Singur) Feb.10 The Trinamool Congress leader, Ms Mamata Banerjee, on Saturday said she was willing to hold talks with the West Bengal Government on issues pertaining to the industrialisation of West Bengal and acquisition of land, provided the Singur issue was part of the discussions and acquisition of land for the Tata small car project there was put on hold.

Ms Banerjee was responding to the West Bengal Chief Minister, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's repeated offers for talks in this regard.

`Hand-in-hand' development

Addressing a meeting of the Krishi Jami Bachao Committee at Chanditala, located just outside the Singur Police Station jurisdiction where a ban order under Section 144 CrPC is in force, Ms Banerjee said she was all for industrialisation in West Bengal but was against industrial development at the cost of agriculture.

"We want industry and agriculture to develop hand-in-hand but not one at the cost of the other," she said. She urged landowners "neither to allow their land to be acquired nor accept compensation cheques from the Government."

Ms Banerjee said Tata Steel's investment plans in Bangladesh and Kalinganagar in Orissa had run into trouble and cautioned that the consequences would be no different if Tata Motors was insistent on putting up its small car project on acquired farmland in Singur. She wondered how the State Government was "turning a blind eye to the fact that more than a thousand workers were working at the project site which was covered by prohibitory orders under Section 144 CrPC".

Meanwhile, thousands of policemen armed with batons and water cannon were posted a few hundred metres from the venue of the meeting where the Singur Police jurisdiction (under Section CrPC) began on the Durgapur Expressway.

Before Ms Banerjee's arrival at the venue of the meeting, a few miscreants pelted stones and damaged the OB van of Star Ananda, the Bengali news channel. A cameraman of ETV was also manhandled.

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