Calcutta, Aug. 1: The tug-of-war between the peasant and industry lobbies in the government has finally led to a decision to pay sharecroppers 25 per cent of the value of the land they till if it is acquired.

This payment will be made over and above the compensation for the landowners.

“The compensation package for bargadars will be applicable in Singur, where the Tata Motors unit is coming up, as well as for those to be affected by the Salim Group projects,’’ Benoy Konar, the CPM state secretariat member and secretary of the party peasants’ wing, told The Telegraph today.

“It will also be in effect in all future industrial and infrastructure projects in the state,” he added.

The additional expenditure, the CPM leader said, “will be borne by the investors and not the government”.

The decision has been incorporated in the agreement between the consortium led by the Salim Group and the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC), signed yesterday in presence of chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Salim executive director Benny Santoso.

However, the benefit would be extended only to bargadars who have already recorded their names as sharecroppers.

“The cost of the land acquisition will include the payment of compensation to recorded bargadars at the rate of 25 per cent of the compensation paid to the owner of the land,’’ the agreement says.

There are about 15 lakh recorded bargadars in Bengal.

Land and land reforms minister Abdur Rezzak Mollah and a section of the Krishak Sabha had been pressing for the payment of 50 per cent of the value of land to bargadars as compensation.

Sharecroppers are now entitled to the equivalent of six times the value of the annual yield of the plot they cultivate.

Industries minister Nirpupam Sen had earlier ruled out the 50 per cent compensation, saying that it would open a floodgate of claims by landowners who would try to extract more from the government by making their relatives bargadars.

He had also argued that it would scare away investors, who are already complaining about high price of land in the state and stressed the need for bargadars’ alternative livelihood. It is still not clear whether Mollah and the Sabha’s rank and file would like the new formula.

Aggrieved over the government’s “hasty move” to acquire around 40,000 acres for Salim projects, Mollah did not attend the signing of yesterday’s agreement.

Konar said: “Farmers’ organisations have made it a practise to ask landowners to sell a plot to his recorded bargadars at half the price of the land. A bargadar also gives up his barga right by taking 50 per cent of the land price. There is no legal basis for it. The pressure of the farmers’ movement created this situation.’’