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West Bengal Land and Land Reforms Minister Abdur Rezzak Mollah plans to introduce a stringent law to ban the use of agricultural land for urban development. Rapid and unplanned urbanisation has caused serious problems for the agriculture sector in the state. According to a report of the Land and Land Reforms Department,1.1 million acres of fertile farmland have been converted into projects pertaining to housing and other urban infrastructure. And if this trend is not checked right now and a more planned approach adopted,West Bengal might face food shortage.
Rezzaks argument for a stringent law is that agricultural land is diminishing fast and while currently 13.4 million acres of land in the state are being used for agriculture,10 years ago the figure was 14.5 million acres.
The population is rising and the farmland is declining every year. How will we manage unless we restrict the trend right now? I am not against urbanisation. But the process should be planned and controlled by the government, said Mollah.
Sources said once the primary work on land use map is complete,the Bill will be proposed. The department has drawn the land use map for five districts West Midnapore,Burdwan,Murshidabad,Birbhum and Bankura. The rest will be completed soon,the source said.
CPM sources said that following Nandigram and Singur incidents,people in rural areas are under constant fear that the government will take away their fertile land for industries. The party had to pay for this. Mollah is doing damage control work for the party, said a senior CPM leader.
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