People's Democracy

LF Govt Announces Rehabilitation Package

AS a first step towards a fresh revision of the land reforms act, the Bengal Left Front government has announced a package of measures for ensuring adequacy of compensation in terms of rehabilitation for those whose land would be taken over for developmental purposes.  The bill for the act would be placed in the next session of the Bengal assembly.

The crux of the package is contained in the proviso, which clearly notes that a perennial job for at least one member of the family who are dependent on agriculture as the only source of livelihood and whose plot of land has to be taken over by the state government for developmental purposes.

The package inter alia also contains the following provisos:

h The encroachers-settlers and the shanty-dwellers on land to be taken over would get a maximum compensation of Rs 10 thousand each

h Those living off the land to be taken over and who exist below the poverty line would be provided with housing facilities either as part of the project on the land or nearby

h The cost of building the housing would be borne by the concern who would purchase the land

h The land owner would receive besides financial compensation, 30 per cent land cost as solatium (compensation for injured feelings), 12 per cent as interest, and 10 per cent as ‘agreed award’

h At least one person of each family would be provided with job training

h It will be seen that the local populace would be able to integrate themselves with the new economic sequence that would take place once the projects are in place

A list of persons inhabiting the land plots to be taken over will soon be worked out.

The next six months will see the Bengal Left Front government taking over close to 30 thousand acres of land, mostly fallow and arid for various developmental projects.  The state government will ensure that unregulated urbanisation does not take place in the new project areas and the surrounding stretches.

Ever eager to create mischief, the Trinamul Congress, aided and abetted by a section of the corporate media, tried to stir up trouble in Singur in Hooghly where a private corporate had gone to survey the land where it would set up an automobile manufacturing project.

The level of the conspiracy was soon unearthed and it was found that a corporate media house had gone around the area meeting the Trinamul Congress supporters, distributing funds among them, and even taking the lead in organising a ‘protesting mob.’  The scheme fell through as no one turned up beyond dozen-odd local roughnecks.  The implications were worrying. 

Biman Basu, state secretary of the CPI(M) and chairman of the Bengal Left Front noted in a press conference that such dirty games would see the corporate media get more and more isolated from the people, viewers, readers, or otherwise. (B P)