Mollah addresses a farmers’ meet in Malda on Wednesday. Picture by Surajit Roy

Malda, Oct. 4: The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, has been entrusted with the job of turning 3.7 lakh hectares of barren land into cultivable plots.

The minister for land and land reforms, Abdur Rezzak Mollah, while announcing the plan here today said over 10 lakh hectares of barren land — owned by private parties — is lying idle in Bankura, Purulia, Burdwan and West Midnapore. Of that, 3.7 lakh hectares can be turned into cultivable land at low cost, he claimed.

The minister said the IIT, which had been given the job of preparing a project report two months ago, would take six months’ time to complete it. Mollah, who had been here to study the progress of recovery of sandbanks (char) along the Ganga, said: “Once we receive the report, we will work on it. We have also plans to take up the remaining 6 lakh hectares.”

According to the minister, nearly 80 blocks would benefit if the 3.7 lakh hectares could be turned into cultivable land. The IIT would also suggest the kind of crops to be grown there.

The minister said thousands of acres of sandbanks were lying idle in Malda and Murshidabad districts. But farmers were unable to cultivate them, as the land is located on the other side of the river near the Jharkhand border and police and mafia from the neighbouring state always oppose any act of farming on “their” land.

Mollah called upon all political parties, including the Trinamul Congress, to fight for restoration of the sandbanks. Over 103 square km of char of 48 mouzas are yet to be recovered, he said.

District magistrate Chittaranjan Das and superintendent of police Dilip Mondal were among the senior officials present at the review meeting held at the circuit house here.

Mollah said the total acreage of sandbanks would be assessed through satellite mapping. The state government would also seek the assistance of the Centre for this, he added.

“Once we start utilising the char, much of the rehabilitation problems of those who had been displaced due to successive erosion of the Ganga will be solved,” the minister said.

He claimed that the state government had detailed maps of the Bengal-Jharkhand border and it would not be difficult to prove that the sandbanks belonged to Bengal. “We want to get back the land. If required, a mass movement will be organised by the peasants for this,” the minister said.

In reply to a question, the minister said the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation has already requisitioned land from the farmers in Singur to hand them over to the Tatas.

“We are ready to hand over the land any moment. I never met the Tatas. The Trinamul Congress and the Congress leaders hobnob with them. Let them bring the Tatas to Purulia or Bankura for setting up industries. We shall give them land there free of cost,” the minister said.