Singur (Bengal), July 14: The clock in Singur is stuck at a tumultuous hour from the summer of 2006.
Bengal has moved on, from Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to Mamata Banerjee and from the farm-versus-factory debate to the default crisis in the districts.
But Singur still stands where it was seven summers ago when a mercurial leader had vowed to prevent Tata Motors from setting up its small car plant in this Hooghly suburb.
Mamata’s agitation forced the company to pack up from Singur in 2008 and relocate the plant in Sanand, Gujarat.
To someone driving past what could have been the Tata Nano factory, the deserted site off Durgapur Expressway looks like a ghost shed that might have been any other closed factory in a state witnessing a flight of capital since the 1970s.
But for Alo Das, a homemaker from Beraberi Purba Para in the vicinity of the proposed car factory, the project’s death represents the end of a dream.
“We hoped the Tata factory would bring us prosperity, but now we have become poorer,” said Alo, whose husband Bablu had a one-bigha plot that was acquired for the factory.
Bablu was an “unwilling” land-loser and hadn’t accepted compensation. He now works on others’ land as a day labourer while Alo binds bidis for a living, earning around Rs 400 a month.
Such stories of struggle abound in Singur. But livelihood is not the sole problem.
As in many rural areas in Bengal, the main road passing through Beraberi and Khasher Bheri — the two villages with the highest number of land-losers — is made of brick and is hardly eight feet wide. The village alleys are dirt tracks that are almost impossible to walk on during the wet season.
Khasher Bheri drinks from deep tube-wells because the pump built to supply tap water lies incomplete for 17 years, thanks to a lawsuit moved by the plot owner over compensation.
Despite these problems, Singur residents, who were first promised a world-class automobile factory and then the return of their land, have only one thing to discuss.
“I haven’t got my land back despite Didi’s (Mamata’s) promises. Now the matter is stuck in the Supreme Court. We don’t know what will happen,” said Ganesh Manna, 45, of Beraberi Purba Para.
His family didn’t take the compensation offered for its 12-bigha plot, acquired for the factory. The Mannas say they earned more than Rs 1.5 lakh a year from their multi-crop land, growing paddy, potatoes and vegetables, a portion of which they kept for themselves.
Ganesh now does odd jobs but earns less than half what he used to.
Ahead of the rural polls here, the CPM-led Opposition is holding Trinamul responsible for the residents’ plight. The debate whether Singur has missed the bus of development is back on centre stage.
Hooghly’s Singur and East Midnapore’s Nandigram, the twin platforms that pitch-forked Mamata to power, are among the places where the panchayat polls will be held on Monday. The other district to vote in the second phase will be Burdwan, Bengal’s rice bowl.
