Buses ferrying employees to the Tata factory in Singur on Monday. Picture by Pradip Sanyal

Calcutta, Aug. 25: Had Mamata Banerjee accepted Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s talks offer, the government would have put forward a proposal to build a market complex to rehabilitate farmers unwilling to hand over land in Singur.

This was revealed to The Telegraph today by CPM central committee member Benoy Konar.

According to the proposal, finalised at a party meeting yesterday and approved by the government, half of the 40 acres of the vested land that is part of the Tata Motors project could be utilised for the market. It would house around 1,500 shops, each measuring 436 sqft.

The 40 acres had been kept aside for “peripheral infrastructure and drainage and sewerage” purposes, CPM sources monitoring the small-car project said.

“According to our calculations, there are about 2,000 farmers who have not collected their cheques for the land acquired from them,” Konar said. “Of them, some are absentee landlords and some whose plots are locked in disputes. So, almost all the marginal farmers and unregistered bargadars who have no other means of livelihood would have been rehabilitated in the market complex.”

The sources said that according to the proposal, the farmers could spend on the shops the money set aside as compensation.

“We would have talked to the Tatas and some of the ancillary units so that these farmers-turned-shopkeepers could have supplied them goods like gloves and uniforms,” Konar said.

Also, with a township expected to come up, the shops could sell grocery and other commodities for household use.

“That way, everything could have been taken care of, only if Mamata had agreed,” Konar said.

He said this was the only “solution” the party could offer for the rehabilitation of the farmers.