Nalikul (Hooghly), Nov. 15: The leader of Bengal’s anti-land acquisition campaign today said she, too, needed plots from farmers to lay rail tracks.

The railway land bank that minister Mamata Banerjee had been harping on for the last five months was not enough for her ministry’s projects in Bengal, it has emerged.

Only the “willing” farmers will have to give up their land, Mamata reminded the thousands of people who had gathered to see her lay the foundation stone for doubling of tracks between Tarakeswar and Nalikul in Hooghly.

One of the projects that would require land acquisition is the proposed rail line to connect Singur to Nandigram — the two places where Mamata ran prolonged anti-acquisition campaigns.

Today, she attempted a contrast between her plan and the state government’s acquisition of 997 acres in Singur where her protests made Tata Motors abandon its Nano plant and move to Gujarat.

“In Singur 1,000 acres were acquired. But there is a difference between that and the acquisition for railway land. My stand is that land will not be forcibly taken. Land will be taken only from willing farmers,” she told the thousands who had gathered at Nalikul station, about 40km from Calcutta.

“We will give compensation for acquiring land that is needed for laying railway tracks. In critical areas there will be compensation and also a job for each family losing land,” she said.

A senior railway official explained that by “critical areas”, Mamata meant small plots which would have to be acquired entirely for laying the tracks. “Jobs will be offered to a family member of these small landowners who give up their entire plot,” Mamata’s aide in the railway ministry said.

“The CPM thinks it will not give me land and so I can’t implement the railway projects. But they don’t know my plans,” Mamata said.

A strip of 30m width is required for laying tracks, including two lines and the additional area on both sides.

Mamata’s ministry is surveying land for a number of new lines that have to be laid.

Tracks would be laid between Tarakeswar and Magra, Baruipara and Furfura Sharif, Dankuni and Bali as well as Tarakeswar and Dhaniakhali, among others. All the places are in Hooghly district.

Land acquisition for a 22km Tarakeswar-Bishnupur line is also in the pipeline. “There are stretches where land is required,” said an Eastern Railway official.

The railways have land bank of 1.12 lakh acres across the country, but which was not enough for laying new tracks, officials informed.

Mamata today said the Tarakeswar-Bishnupur project, which was sanctioned by the Planning Commission during her tenure as railway minister eight years back, would be completed by 2010.