The Hindu : Front Page : State, Trinamool at odds over land to be returned

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State, Trinamool at odds over land to be returned

Special Correspondent

Kolkata: The West Bengal government and the Trinamool Congress continue to be at odds over the acreage of land within the Tata project site at Singur that could be handed back to farmers who have not received compensation.

Underpinning their differences are their contrasting interpretations of the consensus arrived at Sunday’s talks, chaired by Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi and in which Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee participated.

It was agreed then that the government would respond to the demand of those farmers who had not received compensation “by means of land to be provided to the maximum within the project area and the rest in adjacent areas as early as possible.”

The Trinamool camp insists that the phrase “maximum within the project area” implies that the chunk of 400 acres, which the party wants returned to the farmers from whom land was acquired “forcibly,” will be provided from within the project site.

The government’s stand is that only after keeping intact the auto-cluster, comprising the mother plant and the vendor park, can a maximum extent of land from the remaining area within the site be considered for handing back to the farmers as is suggested in Sunday’s consensus.

Meanwhile, the committee, set up with representatives of both sides to “ascertain the scope and settle the modalities” of providing land to the farmers, visited the project site on Wednesday to see for itself how much land might be available within the project area.

Trinamool MLA and committee member Rabindranath Bhattacharya later said vacant land available within the site would add up to about 300 acres.

Mr. Bhattacharya said the government representatives on the committee, at its first meeting here on Tuesday, had stated that 40 acres could be provided from within the project area. The government officials also said another 50 acres could be made available from outside the site, he said.

The committee will reconvene here on Thursday for further discussions.

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