Singur: Farmers of Singur have put up their lands for sale, three years after the Mamata Banerjee government returned it to them.
Their agitation against land acquisition had forced Tata Motors to shift its Nano car project to Gujarat and also contributed to the end of the 34-year Left Front rule in West Bengal in 2011. Nearly a decade on, politicians have lost interest in Singur, and even the farmers are desperately looking for buyers for the same land.
The farmers’ desire to sell their land is driven by a combination of poor soil quality, remnants of Tata plant still on the land and prices rising nearly 10 folds due to the Durgapur Expressway that now runs through the stretch.
Towards an unknown future
When the then Left Front government began acquiring land for the Tata project in 2006, it converted agricultural plots into an industrial property. While 11,000 farmers relented, 3,000 held out, refusing to give up their land.
They began the Singur agitation that culminated in Mamata Banerjee toppling the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government. Returning land to the farmers of Singur was Banerjee’s first cabinet decision after assuming office in 2011.
Following a five-year legal battle with Tata Motors, her government finally got the land back. All 14,000 farmers got their land back by 2016, exactly 10 years after the Singur agitation kicked off.
But even as land has returned to the farmers, its status has remained in limbo. Farmers say the soil is of poor quality and allege that remnants of the Tata plant, including concrete slabs, pipes, plates and boulders, are still on the land.
The Durgapur Expressway that runs through here is now providing a glimmer of hope. There has been a ten-fold price rise for a bigha of land here, due to the warehouse sector in the region showing a keen interest in the farmers’ holdings. But a catch remains, only land close to the Durgapur Expressway fetches the premium price while plots that are located that even 200 to 300 metres from the highway fail to draw buyers.
Real estate consultants said the warehouse market near highways is booming in the state.
Parvez Khalid, a senior director at CBRE South Asia Pvt. Ltd, told The Print, “Land prices in Singur particularly around the expressway that links Kolkata with New Delhi have seen revival over the last two years and we are hopeful that this will continue to do so. Prices around the expressway have steadied and land prices are anywhere around Rs 1.2-1.3 crore per acre.”
Another Kolkata-based real estate consultant, who did not wish to be named, said, “We have conducted surveys in Uluberia, Dankuni and Singur areas where buyers are ready to pay a premium for plots. But the price drops when the plot is around 300 to 500 m from the highway.”
According to online land aggregators, a bigha of land near the Durgapur Expressway in Singur is now being sold at Rs 30 to 40 lakh, at least 10 times the price that the Left Front government offered to ‘willing farmers’ 13 years ago. A real estate agency in the area also quoted a similar price for the land. Even farmers who once sold their land to the state at Rs 2.70 lakh a bigha in 2006, are looking to re-sell.
Arun Kumar Das, a 72-year-old farmer who had handed over his 12 bighas of land for Rs 32.4 lakh, says he has met at least four to five buyers but is yet to strike a deal.
“I have been trying very hard to sell my land. The land is of no use,” Das told ThePrint. “There can never be crops there. It is totally uncultivable. Moreover, we had handed over our land to the government a decade back for industry, for jobs. That dream is shattered.”
He also accused the local administration of creating hurdles. “This land has become a thorn. The district administration is also not cooperating with us for the sale of land,” he said. “They are saying that conversion of land is not possible.”
Even those who were unwilling to part with the land in 2006 are now looking to sell.
Joyram Ghosh, who was among the 3,000 that refused to sell, says he did all he could to cultivate the land. The 52-year-old owns 10 bighas. “My land is inside the villages, not near the highway,” he said. “Prices for my plots are anyway lower than the plots near the highway. A group of farmers including me are looking for buyers or promoters here. We are ready to sell but at a little higher rate than what the government offered back then.”
On charges that the administration is creating hurdles, a senior district official said, “Legally, there should not be a problem about mutation as the farmers have got land documents. At times, the government wants to discourage selling land here, so locally some people may have some issues. But we generally do not hold any land back for mutation.”
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Trouble in converting the land back to agricultural plots
Within two months of starting the process to return the land in 2016, which demanded a huge administrative exercise, the Mamata Banerjee government also invested over Rs 200 crore to re-convert the industry plot back to farmland.
The state spent over Rs 100 crore to set up an integrated irrigation network, at least 56 deep tubewells and an extended network of irrigation canals with two check dams over a small river. A new power network with over 20 transformers was installed to run the tube wells and augment the water requirement in the dry months.
More importantly, the government made an effort to clear the land of iron plates, huge factory sheds, a concrete building and the huge pile of junkyard. It demolished all concrete structures and removed power stations.
But all of this clean-up process only covered around 300 acres of land. The rest have been left to grapple with dense outgrowth, falling structures, mounds of metal, concrete scraps and huge industrial pipes.
Singur tried to travel back from industry to agriculture, resuming farming in around 200 acres of land but farmers only grew small-time crops like mustard, lentils and spinach. They eventually lost interest as they could not grow cash crops like paddy and potato.
A soil scientist from Jadavpur University said the government was warned that it would be a difficult task to re-convert the land but no one paid heed. “We said that industry land where concrete structures came up can never be re-converted to farmland. But it was a battle of politics, ego, prestige and authority,” the scientist said.
To add to their woes, at least 22 landowners lodged FIRs with the local police station in November 2016 when their names did not appear on the list of claimants. Their cheques were allegedly withdrawn fraudulently by those who managed some old papers of the plots.
Mahadeb Das, Trinamool Congress (TMC) working president of Singur block, confirmed the cases. “They have come to me several times. We have appealed to top TMC leaders to look into the issue,” Das said. “Some of them are now asking money from me. How will I pay them? I too have 10 bighas of land that I have not been able to cultivate in the last three years. I earn my living by supplying vegetables to a local hospital.”
The district administration, however, refused to comment on the issue.
Veteran leaders of the Singur agitation have little to say. “Some 20 people did not get their land and cheque due to some legal tussle. We are trying to address these issues,” said Rabindranath Bhattacharya, a four-term TMC MLA from Singur. “As far as land is concerned, we are trying to work on it. The farmers also have to consider that they got their land back, cheques, a Rs 2000 monthly allowance per landowner and 16 kg of rice at Rs 2 a kilo for each family member. What more can a government do?”
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‘Government has done its bit’
The TMC government insists that it has done its bit for the farmers.
In July 2019, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee told the state legislature that some farmers are not willing to practise agriculture and are hence selling their land at high prices. The government has done everything that was promised, she said.
Speaking to ThePrint, Agriculture Minister Ashish Banerjee said, “We also know that some people are selling their land. We tried to make the land cultivable. We had also given a Rs 10,000 grant to all farmers to start agricultural work. We still continue to give them the monthly allowance. We are ready to help them with everything they need.”
The situation has, however, taken a political toll on the TMC.
Singur had been a TMC bastion since 2001, much before the Left rout. But in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the TMC trailed a resurgent BJP by 11,000 in the Singur assembly segment. The segment falls under the Hooghly Lok Sabha constituency, which is now held by the BJP.
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