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Amid opposition and heated arguments put up by its partners, the Left Front today formally approved the land transfer for Tata Motors’ car factory at Singur, announcing a 152-per cent compensatory package for the displaced.
The meeting that had Chief
Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee defending the deal, okayed the land acquisition. Biman Bose, Left Front chairman and state secretary of
Communist Party of India (Marxist), spoke of the decision at the end of
the meeting.
Bose said the compensation package would be 152 per cent of the land’s actual cost, which a farmer can fetch, in general. ‘‘A 30-per cent solatium, 12 per cent bank interest and a 10-per cent bonus will be paid by the Government,’’ he said. The new package is higher than the earlier promised 130-per cent package.
Bose said the ‘‘partners have reached a consensus of opinion’’ and those being affected, would be sufficiently compensated. He suggested that the Government should make adequate arrangements to see that ‘‘composite packages’’ were availed by individual peasants.
Defending the Left’s decision in favour of the Tatas, he said the Front ‘‘in principle, is not against industrialisation’’. Bose though cautioned that the industrialisation was not being promoted by destroying agriculture. ‘‘We want to raise industry, keeping in mind the needs of the agriculture,’’ said Bose.
Denying the allegation that much of the land being handed over to the Tatas, was fertile land owned by the poor peasants, Bose said much of the land, under consideration, had already changed hands. ‘‘Some of it has already been acquired by businessmen, even before the Durgapur Expressway was laid. The Government will have to take over these plots,’’ he added.
The Left Front has also assured that alternative job opportunities will be given to jobless landowners and the compensation will be adequate for the low-income groups to set up small businesses.
mohammed.shamsiexpressindia.com
