Singur Land Bill passed, Mamata fulfils promise

Amid heated exchange of words and walkout by Opposition members, West Bengal Assembly on Tuesday passed a Bill scrapping the previous Left Front government's deal with Tata Motors to return land to 'unwilling ' farmers in Singur, fulfilling a key election pledge of Mamata Banerjee . The Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Bill, 2011, enabled the government to return land to farmers who had unwillingly parted with their land and also did not accept compensation.

The Bill vested the entire 997.17 acre of acquired land at Singur for the now abandoned Nano project along with the existing structure with the state government. The government would return equivalent quantum of land to “unwilling” farmers in 400 acre. The remaining portion of the land would be utilised for socio-economic development, employment generation, industry and other public purposes. The Bill, piloted by Minister for Industries and Commerce Partha Chatterjee, was passed by voice vote in the absence of the Left Front legislators after Speaker Biman Bandhopadhyay declined to admit a point of order raised by Leader of the Opposition Suryakanta Mishra.

When the Bill was put to vote, the Left MLAs, who cited legal loopholes in the legislation , walked out of the House. The debate on the Bill was punctuated by occasional angry exchanges between the treasury and Opposition benches. Mishra, belonging to CPM, raised the point of order saying Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, during her speech in the debate, did not reply to the legal issues raised by him in relation to the Bill.

Participating in the two-hour discussion on the Bill, the Chief Minister said it had been brought to “undo the injustice” meted out to the people. She said her government did not want to drive a wedge between ‘willing’ and ‘unwilling’ farmers but the situation forced it to resort to it. She said the names of the willing farmers had not been recorded. Meanwhile, the Tatas said they were studying the Singur Bill passed by the West Bengal Assembly. “We are studying the Singur Bill which was passed today,” a spokesman of the Tata Group said.