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Modhvadia does a volte face

AHMEDABAD: In a sudden turnaround from his earlier stand, the Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) spokesman and the former Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, Arjun Modhvadia, has demanded that the Tata Motors pay due compensation to the farmers for acquiring their land in Sanand in Ahmedabad district for the Nano car project.

Mr. Modhvadia has also accused the Tatas of being more interested in the land in Sanand than manufacturing small cars and charged Chief Minister Narendra Modi with giving away the costly lands to the Tatas at throwaway rice for “personal gains.”

He claimed that the land allocated to the Tatas would cost over Rs. 1,000 crore but his information was that the company had been given the land for a negligible amount.

He said not only the Tatas, but Mr. Narendra Modi too had been causing immense losses to the State exchequer by giving cheap land and other concessions to the industrial houses to take personal credit for industrialisation of Gujarat.

The GPCC spokesman, who earlier had welcomed the Tatas to Gujarat to set up the Nano project, said the petitions of the farmers demanding restoration of the lands to them were pending in various courts and the Chief Minister had no right to allocate the same to the Tatas without first completing the land acquisition process ensuring due compensation to the owners.

Tracing the history of the 2,251 acres of land in Sanand, of which 1,100 acres had been earmarked for the Tatas, Mr. Modhvadia pointed out that in 1902, the then British governor in Bombay, North Court, had taken the land on 99 years’ lease basis from the farmers in Sanand for the preservation and development of Kankrej cows and handed over the land to the Gujarat Cattle Preservation Society. The necessary compensation for the lease period was paid to the farmers in August 1911.

In April 1940, the land was again transferred to the Institute of Agriculture, presently the Gujarat Agricultural University, Anand, under certain conditions.

But despite the expiry of the lease period in 2001, the land was not returned to the descendants of the original owners following which several farmers filed petitions in the court.

The collector had informed the claimants in 2006 that documents for taking the lands on 99 years’ lease and transfer of the land to the agricultural university was available with the government but there were no documents for land acquisition or any proof of ownership of the land.

Mr. Modhvadia said besides the claims of one Balwantsinh Vaghela, whose petition for the restoration of his ancestor’s land in Sanand was pending before the Ahmedabad civil court, Manubhai Vaghela and 22 others filed a petition before the revenue secretary on October 7, the day the Tatas and the government signed the agreement for the Nano project.

The government could not ignore their claim and should not allocate the lands to the Tatas without first settling the disputes with the owners of the land, Mr. Modhvadia said.

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