A farmer whose land will be taken by the new township. Picture by Sanat Kumar Sinha

Salap/Dankuni, April 21: In a makeshift classroom at Pankuria, 26-year-old anchal pradhan Shankar Ghosh explains what development would mean for the village.

Just across national hi-ghway 6, giant dumpers and earth-movers are clearing the way for the Salem group’s Calcutta West International City to come up.

“My father had one bigha land that has been acquired by the government for the township,” Ghosh says.

Despite being a CPM supporter, he freely speaks about the dismal compensation he got, a grouse he shares with Ganesh Ghosh, 38, who has lost nine bighas.

“We won’t benefit at all,” Ganesh says. “Some wealthy businessman will come and live here on my land. All we may gain are jobs as domestic helps.”

A few miles from Pankuria ? which comes under Howrah’s Domjur Assembly cons-tituency ? the mood is similar in Panchghara, where the elected head of a cluster of villa- ges (anchal pradhan), Bhabataran Dhara, sits at the panchayat office, shaking his head.

“Our main livelihood is farming. We do boro cultivation and also grow jhinga and bhindi. Pisciculture, too, is popular. It’s enough to feed a family of 35.”

The Dankuni township will end this, says Dhara, who has turned against his party, the CPM, on this issue.

The project, for which the state government has floated a global tender, means this village in Hooghly’s Chanditala constituency will lose most of its land.

As they head for the elections on Saturday, Chanditala and Domjur will have on their minds an issue that is agitating the whole of India and can only get bigger in the coming decades.

The development-displacement conflict in Narmada has already entangled the Supreme Court, the Centre and several state governments in a prickly debate. The embers of the Kalinga Nagar police firing on displaced tribals are yet to die down in Orissa, which is working overtime to come out with a new rehabilitation policy.

Mohanta Chatterjee, the CPM candidate from Dom- jur who will have to tackle the issue in tomorrow’s vote, has a rather lame excuse for the poor compensation in Pankuria.

Ganesh Ghosh says he received Rs 94,000 for every bigha, which comes to Rs 4,700 a cottah. This in a village lying just off the highway when neighbouring Bankra has been paid Rs 20,000 a cottah and Tentulkuli Rs 13,000.

Chatterjee explains the land acquisition notices in Pankuria were served in 1982 for a mega housing project ? so the government is paying compensation at the rate prevalent then. “For the other villages (where land was acquired later, under a different law), compensation has been calculated at the current market rate.”

Getting compensation, in the first place, was tough. The Howrah Improvement Trust turned many villagers away saying their parchas and the trust’s records didn’t match.

“We are being asked to go to court. That is too costly. The lawyers are asking for 20 per cent of the compensa- tion,” said Nitai, who lost his land to the government without getting a paisa.

In Panchghara, former anchal pradhan Shahriar Mullick alleges: “The ruling party has hired brokers who are pressuring the small farmers into selling off their land.

“About 12,000 families in Naiti, Panchghara, Jaykrishnapur and Jhankari are about to be dispossessed.”

The villages are dominated by the scheduled tribes, and it is easy to evict such people, Mullick adds.

Dhara echoes him. “They have selected an area where land is largely owned by the scheduled tribes. Our people have little education. Farming is their main source of livelihood. If their land is taken away, how will they feed their families?”