By IANS,
Kolkata : After the drubbing in the recent Lok Sabha elections in which the state’s opposition campaigned against forcible acquisition of agricultural land for industries, West Bengal’s Left Front government Thursday decided to adopt a flexible stand on the issue.
“We will not take any rigid stand on land acquisition. We will be flexible,” state PWD Minister Kshiti Goswami told reporters after a cabinet meeting.
It was learnt that the government would henceforth lay stress on direct purchase of land by the industrialists instead of acquiring land for them.
The state government’s efforts to acquire land in Singur for the Tata Motors’ Nano plant and in Nandigram for a chemical hub sparked political controversies with the opposition taking up cudgels on behalf of the landlosers.
Faced with a sustained agitation, the Tatas shifted their plant to Sanand in Gujarat, while the government was forced to abort its move to set up the chemical plant after much blood-spilling in Nandigram.
Making the land acquisition bid in Singur and Nandigram as a main campaign plank, the Trinamool-Congress-Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI) alliance decimated the LF winning 26 out of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state.
At the cabinet meeting, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee circulated a note giving a broad outline of the state government’s policies in the coming days.
The chief minister also asked the ministers to submit work report and plans and programmes for the next one year by June-July.