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The land for the Nano plant in Gujarat has been acquired at Rs 400 crore, representing more than 25 per cent of the project cost for the Nano, at about Rs 1,500 crore — perhaps a record of sorts. It is intriguing that the Tatas decided to invest additionally more than 100 per cent of the land cost at Singur.

Owners of single-crop land in Singur got Rs 8.4 lakh per acre and Rs 12 lakh an acre if the land was used for double-cropping. The West Bengal government paid Rs 143 crore two years ago to acquire some 1,000 acres at Singur and the Government announced in September that it would pay an additional 50 per cent to each farmer from whom it got land — in all, the price would not have exceeded Rs 225 crore had the Tatas continued in Singur.

Over 9,000 land-owners at Singur (over 94 per cent of the total land to be acquired) had agreed to the deal and received compensation from the State government.

The Tatas probably decided to move out of Bengal because they saw a class conflict between land-owners, on one side, and share-croppers, who are the real farmers, and landless labourers, on the other.

The base-level share-croppers and landless labourers were left out of the organised political system in Bengal and were thus not favoured by the ruling CPM. While the land-owners were given liberal compensation, Ms Mamata Bannerjee grabbed the opportunity to mobilise the segments that were denied compensation.

If the West Bengal Chief Minister had set this right by adequately compensating the land-croppers and labourers, he would have set a precedent. This could have helped Tatas meet the Nano’s delivery,schedule and the Left parties could have seized the opportunity to bring about unity among the agrarian forces.

S. Padmanabhan e-mail

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