The Bengal Government will start returning of Singur lands to the farmers from Thursday, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said on Monday adding she would personally descend in the green fields and start restoring lands to the original owners. The process will begin from Gopalnagar mouza of Singur block.
Claiming that about 80 per cent of the land had been rendered cultivable and would be returned in farm-fit condition Banerjee said the Supreme Court’s order would be fully complied with.
The Chief Minister said “we will return all but about 36 acres of land on which the main factory shed stood and on which a lot of concrete piling had been done. This land needs to be completely restructured with the help of experts from Kolkata Municipal Corporation, PWD and other agencies. Another acres of land on which water bodies had been constructed will also not be returned.”
The Government was currently in a position to return about 80 percent of land in a farm-fit condition, she maintained adding “I will personally visit the place and start returning the land from Gopalnagar mouza.”
About 997 acres of land had been forcibly acquired a decade ago by the then Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee Government for the construction of a much bandied small car factory of the Tata Motors.
Soon Mamata Banerjee in conjugation with other opposition parties started a sustained peasants’ movement clubbing a similar peasants’ struggle at Nandigram with it.
Soon Singur and Nandigram movements turned out to be Bhattacharjee’s Trafalgar and Waterloo apparently branding his Government as anti-farmer. As a consequence the three-decade-old Marxist Government was defeated in 2011 and Banerjee roared to power.
In a subsequent development the Supreme Court on August 31 this year struck down the land acquisition and directed the new Mamata Banerjee Government to restore the acquired lands to the farmers along with compensation against the losses they suffered in the past 10 years.
Redeeming a pledge made years ago as the opposition leader Banerjee returned papers pertaining to the Singur lands to the farmers subsequent to the Court order and compensated about 800 farmers for their losses.
Replying to queries senior minister Partho Chattopadhyay said “we are happy with the progress and will smoothly return the lands to the farmers.
Meanwhile, claims made by the Government notwithstanding there was grumbling of discontent among the farmers who complained of harassment by the officials as many of them did not posses requisite deeds.
Among those who did not posses perfect papers were local Trinamool MlAs Rabindranath Bhattacharya and Becharam Manna both former Ministers.