Nandigram: Farmers veto Mamata Banerjee’s 'Railways For Land' offer

KOLKATA: The Left Front government’s ill-advised attempt to acquire land in Nandigram in 2007-08 was the starting point for Mamata Banerjee’s march to Writer’s Building.

To honour the people of Nandigram, Banerjee in her first railway budget as UPA’s railway minister brought Nandigram on the rail map by announcing a Rs 185-crore project. But the farmers, with whose help she launched the protest against land acquisition during the Communist rule, have vetoed the project. They have yet again launched an anti-land acquisition movement. This time, it is against their ‘Didi’.

Mamata may have championed the cause of those who lost land in Nandigram but it has come in the way of her Nandigram model railway station and rail track. The assembly constituency has 17 panchayats of which 16 are controlled by the Trinamool. Despite having absolute control over the region and three railway ministers from her party, the project conceptualised by Banerjee has not taken off.

Even as voters go to the polls here on May 5, the railways are busy fighting 392 cases filed by landowners against land-acquisition for the project. The project included a model station and an 18.5 km railway track connecting Nandigram to Deshapran, a nearby railway station.

It requires 194 acres, of which 163 acres are with the railways. As promised by then railway minister Banerjee, the railways have also provided jobs to 413 land owners along with compensation higher than the market price.

In the 2016 budget, the railway ministry allocated Rs 2 crore for the project. The station building is half complete. Three major rail bridges have already been constructed over the land that railways acquired. But with litigation continuing over 31 acres, progress is very slow.

Mamata’s candidate Subhendu Adhikari has given minimum time to his constituency, still he is likely to sail through here as CPM has not risen from the meltdown in Nandigram after the violence.