A mood of sombreness hung over Singur in West Bengal on Thursday: what you’d expect a day after the Supreme Court’s historic verdict ordering the State government to return to them the land that had been acquired for the aborted Tata Motors plant.
That’s because in the cold light of the day after, the practical difficulties in implementing the court order are dawning on the farmers.
The State government, for its part, says it will return 997 acres of fertile multi-crop land, acquired in 2006, to farmers in its “original cultivable form”. But Singur’s farmers are sceptical: the low-lying land was developed to build the factory, and, covered with land-fill materials, is uncultivable. Moreover, many land parcels were too small and may be hard to identify precisely even by the farmers themselves. And in some cases, ownership of land parcels is disputed, a result of informal transactions to avoid taxes or bypass land ceiling laws.
Singur MLA Rabindranath Bhattacharya acknowledges the difficulty in implementing the order. “There are many issues in identifying the land parcels, among other things,” he said.
The government estimates there are 14,500-odd ‘landlosers’, including landowners, sharecroppers and labourers. Of these, 12,000-odd accepted compensation worth nearly ₹120 crore. The State government will now compensate the rest, loosely referred to as “unwilling farmers”, for a total of nearly ₹25 crore.
Demarcating the plots Bidhan Shee of Sahanapara, who didn’t accept the compensation, wonders if he will be worse off following the verdict. For five years, since Mamata Banerjee assumed power in May 2011, he has been getting subsidised foodgrains and ₹2,000 a month. That will will now stop. “The land is covered with fly-ash and other land-fill material. How can you make it cultivable? And how will they identify my plotwhen I myself cannot?” he asks. The location of the plot is critical for harnessing its agricultural potential and securing the market price. Another villager, for instance, insists that his original plot (which was near the highway) be returned to him.
Udayan Das, a local doctor, gave up 21 acres for the project, and doubts the government can render the land cultivable again. But Mahadeb Das, a Trinamool Congress leader who campaigned against the land acquisition, is hopeful.
“If you can move mountains, why can’t you remove the bitumen or construction material to make the land cultivable?” he points out.
Double benefit for some The farmers who accepted the compensation are doubly happy: they can retain the compensation and they will get their land back. But even their joy is bounded by the realisation that with the gen-next uninterested in agriculture, the agricultural land means little to them.
Says Swapan Barui (name changed): “My son is an engineer; he won’t take up farming. What use is land that has no commercial value?”