Histrionics Over The Singur Issue
Land Issue in Singur
Singur is a small town in the Hooghly district of West Bengal. The population of Singur is over 20,000 and the town has a literacy rate of nearly 80 per cent. Tata Motors and the West Bengal Government agreed for the Tatas to set up their plant to manufacture their One-Lakh rupee car, the Tata Nano at Singur.
The agreement between the Tata group and the Government over the Plant at Singur was reached in early May of 2006. The land earmarked for the project was taken control of by the state administration amidst protests and fencing off commenced on the first of December. This was also accompanied by unruliness and minor violence in the Legislative Assembly.
Politically, the biggest winner of the dual land issues has been Trinamool Congress and Mamta Banerjee, who has since become the savior of hapless peasants. However, a recent newspaper article said Maoist naxalites claimed that they had been asked by the TMC to join in the violence on March 14.
Mamata said the Railways was prepared to set up industry in the public-private model, provided 600 acres of the 1,000 acres land acquired for the Tata plant was given to the Railways. The remaining, contested 400 acres would be returned to the farmers from whom, she claims, land was forcibly acquired. It was on these grounds that she had protested against the Nano plant.