Nirupam Sen

Calcutta, Sept. 6: The CPM is coming round to the view that some alternative land may need to be given to landlosers in future acquisitions, party sources say.

At the Raj Bhavan talks on Singur today, the state government did not oppose a “land-based solution” as suggested by governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi. The government’s objection is to returning land from within the project area.

Some CPM leaders denied the stand amounted to a change in the state’s overall land acquisition policy and insisted it must be seen as a one-off “economic rehabilitation plan” for Singur.

In private, however, some state secretariat members said the party had realised the need to provide landlosers with alternative land as well as other benefits such as jobs in the future.

“The would-be landlosers for the new airport project in Andal will be given some land. From now on, five per cent of land acquired for any project will be developed commercially and given to the farmers,’’ a secretariat member said.

Sources said many top CPM leaders favoured such a policy, and land and land reforms minister Abdur Rezzak Mollah had sent a note to party state secretary Biman Bose with the same proposal.

They said Sen and senior party leader Benoy Konar had so far opposed a land-for- land policy since they felt it would make future acquisition difficult in land-scarce Bengal. But the opposite view was gaining ground after the party’s rural polls setback, and especially after the Singur siege.

After today’s Raj Bhavan talks, Sen said: “The governor had requested us to see whether it was possible to do something regarding the land to solve the problem. Yesterday I had given an indication about the government’s position. Today I elaborated our proposals and held talks on them.” He gave no details.

Opposition team members at the talks claimed Sen had agreed to concede around 140 acres. This, they said, included the unused 47 acres of the acquired land that lies outside the project area and is owned by the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC).

They claimed Sen had promised to buy the rema-ining 100 acres with help from the Trinamul-controlled panchayat samitis to “resettle land-dependent poor landlosers”.

It’s not clear if Sen’s earlier plan for a market complex for the landlosers on the WBIDC plot stands. The Opposition team claimed Sen had agreed to leave the entire 140 acres to the farmers to decide if they would resume farming or use it commercially.

The CPM neither denied nor confirmed any of this but officially, party leaders dismissed any talk of a policy shift.

“It’s not a land-for-land policy as the Opposition is claiming. Had it been so, the government would have had to offer alternative farmland to all the thousands of landlosers in Singur,’’ CPM state secretariat member Madan Ghosh said.

“This is just part of the government’s rehabilitation plan,” fellow secretariat member Dipak Dasgupta added.