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WB Govt. working on land acquisition policy

KOLKATA: The West Bengal Government is working on formulating a “just policy of land acquisition and rehabilitation”, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said here on Friday.

“We can withdraw and let the private companies buy land directly from the farmers, but then what is the guarantee that the latter will get the remunerative price,” said Mr. Bhattacharjee, addressing the meeting of the National Executive Committee of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). “So, the government must have some say,” he said.

But there are doubts whether one model will be applicable to all the districts, Mr. Bhattacharjee said. With six steel plants on the anvil, the State was attracting the maximum amount of investment in iron and steel, followed by petrochemicals and food processing. “For example, Jindal has promised to provide jobs to all the 970 families affected [by the JSW Steel plant at Salboni in Paschim Medinipur],” Mr. Bhattacharjee said. But in Singur, over 12,000 families would be affected and the Tata small car factory could not possibly employ all of them, he added.

“Only about one or two lakh hectares of the 1.35 crore hectare available is needed for industries and so there is no problem at the macro level,” he said. But there was tension among micro-level farmers who fear losing their small plots of land, he added.

Speaking on the controversy surrounding organised retailing, Mr. Bhattacharjee said it was necessary to “move very cautiously” and allow Indian companies to operate in retail with some regulations. “But they should not touch foodgrains and operate from outside the city, as in the U.S. and the U.K.”

Mr. Bhattacharjee said the Government had to play a greater role in setting up basic infrastructure in the country and could not rely only on projects based on public-private partnership models. It should also conduct an overview of the Special Economic Zone policy and not succumb to “pressure politics” in setting them up.

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