Abstract |
The Singur "model" of industrialisation as represented by the now abandoned Tata Motors project in West Bengal has a number of regressive features. The Left Front government in West Bengal, in competition with other states for the location of Tata Motors' Nano automobile complex, fell overboard in offering subsidies to the company. Further, the government did not scrutinise the quantum of land demanded by the company, blundered by offering highly fertile land in Singur, and compounded its mistake by invoking the Land Acquisition Act, thereby compelling landowners to surrender their land at a low price. Its compensation formula was biased in favour of non-cultivating absentee landowners, and grossly unfair to the actual cultivators, bargadars and agricultural labourers, giving rise to concerted opposition from peasants and their supporters. |