Work on Sunderbans 750-km barrier to begin this month

“The central government had agreed to sanction money for building the embankment but unfortunately the previous Left Front government had done nothing. Now,we want the work to start this month,on whatever land we have got,because the project had already suffered immense delays,” said Minister for Irrigation Manas Bhuniya,a day after he visited areas of North 24-Parganas and South 24-Parganas districts where the embankment will come up.

Sources in his department,however,said the real stumbling block in the project is land. After checking with land and land revenue department,it was found that so far only 100 acres of the required 6,000 acres have been acquired. “Since the new government came to power,not even one decimal of land has been acquired,’’ said one official.

Bhuniya,however,justified the slow pace in the land acquisition for the project saying “the new government is going through a phase of transition”. “We have come to power just four months and half back. And during this time we experienced abnormal rains. So we have decided to start the work on whatever land we have got,’’ he added.

The other irritant in the project’s implementation is the government’s own decision to give job to one member of the land-losing families. With famers in Sunderbans being small land owners,acquisition of 6,000 acres would mean giving jobs to at least 60,000- 70,000 families. “It is a time consuming affair. Let us go ahead with building of the embankment first,’’ said Bhuniya as he shrugged of the question about how the government would be able to provide such a mammoth number of jobs.

The government’s urgency could,however,be sensed that Chief Secretary Samar Ghosh has called a high-level meeting of the top officials on Tuesday.