By IANS,
Kolkata : Protests against Tata Motors’ small car project at Singur for allegedly forceful acquisition of farmland continued Sunday as the Congress blocked roads and a Trinamool Congress-supported group took out a big rally in the town.
Demanding that the West Bengal government and the Tata Motors return 400 acres taken from “unwilling” farmers, around 1,000 rallyists covered a two-km stretch of Singur – an affluent rural belt of Hooghly district – raising slogans against the state’s Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M)-led Left Front government.
“We are not against industrialisation. We just don’t want industries to come up on fertile land. We want factories on infertile land, low lands and unutilised lands of closed down factories,” Singur Krishi Jami Raksha Committee (Singur Save Farmland Committee) convenor Becharam Manna told reporters.
Referring to Tata Motors managing director Ravi Kant’s remarks that the company would continue in Singur, 40 km from here, as long as its patience did not wear off, Manna said: “The LF government is responsible for investors backing out.”
Manna said had the government not given fertile land to Tata Motors, the situation would not have taken a turn for the worse.
Congress activists led by assembly member Abdul Mannan set up road blocks at various spots of the busy Durgapur Expressway, affecting vehicular movement.
Security has been beefed up in Singur after the committee stepped up its agitation since July 27 and ordered workers at the factory who come from outside Singur not to report for duty.
The situation worsened when an engineer of the construction firm Shapoorji Pallonji was roughed up by women protesters Tuesday night.
A day later, Ravi Kant said in Mumbai there were “elements” trying to create tension, and conceded the situation had turned bad in Singur.
On Friday, peasants clashed with the police after a handful of locals tried to break the factory wall with shovels. Two security men were also beaten up, but no police complaint has been lodged so far.
Committee members squatted on the railway tracks Saturday, detaining several mail and express trains.
Following resentment among a substantial section of peasants from whom the state government has acquired the lands for the project, the committee along with the civil society has spearheaded an agitation since mid-2006 against setting up of the plant.
The government acquired 997.11 acres, triggering protests across the three panchayats – Gopalnagar, KGD (Kamarkundu, Gopalnagar, Doluigachcha) and Beraberi – that comprise the project area.
The Singur factory is working on manufacturing Nano, universally hailed as a feat in automobile engineering and expected to be the world’s cheapest car costing just Rs.100,000 (less than $2,500).