Allowance for unwilling Singur farmers to be doubled: Mamata Banerjee

KOLKATA: The allowance of Rs 1000 per month being paid to farmers of Singur, who had unwillingly parted with their land and not accepted compensation, would be doubled to Rs 2000, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced today.

Stating that the farmers might find Rs 1000 per month, being paid by the state government, difficult to subsist on, Banerjee said, "It is being doubled to Rs 2000 for them and for agricultural labourers from July one."

The farmers and agricultural labourers would continue to receive the money till the resolution of the issue and their land being returned to them, Banerjee told reporters at the state secretariat here.

They would also receive two kgs of rice at Rs two each week, she said.

The doubling of the montly allowance came after the chief minister on Saturday held a meeting with representatives of umbrella organisation which had spearheaded the Singur movement and to discuss the return of land to farmers.

On June 5, the state Cabinet had approved payment of a monthly allowance of Rs 1,000 per month to the farmers who had refused to accept the price of their land when the erstwhile Left Front government acquired 1,000 acre for the small car project of Tata Motors.

The Calcutta High Court had ruled on June 22 that the Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Act, 2011, introduced by the government to recover land leased to Tata Motors in Singur, was constitutionally invalid and void.