Mamata factory plan on Nano site- Trinamul chief sings industry tune

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090803/jsp/bengal/story_11314325.jsp
Singur, Aug. 2: Mamata Banerjee today sprang on Singur a proposal for a railway coach factory, taking a symbolic pro-industry stride in the same spot where she had launched the agitation against the Nano.
The state government could do little but pledge support if a formal proposal was made but experts said Mamata’s plan could not be implemented without changing the law. Besides, the Tatas, who have renewed the lease, are holding the land where Mamata wants to set up the coach factory.
“I have spoken to various Union ministries and told them that if the Centre gives the land to the railways, we can set up a production unit with PPP (public-private participation),” Mamata said, flagging off a train to celebrate the agitation that had driven out the small-car project from Bengal.
Andolan Local connects Singur with Howrah.
“The land is lying with someone but no industry is coming up here,” Mamata said, iterating her demand that 400 acres from the Nano plant be returned to their original owners and the remaining 600 be used for industry.
“In Singur, we want both industrialisation and agriculture. If the Centre gives us the land, we will develop industry on 600 acres and return 400 acres to the farmers.”
Legal experts said the Centre could not “hand over” the plot to Mamata because “land acquisition is a state subject”.
“The Singur plot had been acquired by the state for the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC). Tata Motors is merely a lessee and the Centre can’t interfere in this,” said lawyer Arunabha Ghosh.
“To start a new project by another owner, the WBIDC will have to auction the land after returning the lease amount paid by the Tatas and the plot will go to the highest bidder.”
To return the land to its erstwhile owners, the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, has to be changed.
Tata Motors paid Rs 1 crore this April and renewed its lease for its 647 acres for another year. Many of vendors earlier slated to set up shop in Singur have also renewed their lease.
At the commercial launch of the Nano in Mumbai on March 23, Ratan Tata had said the company had no plans to give up the land. “The factory sheds are still in place over there. We haven’t decided what to do with them,” he had said.
Official sources said if the Tatas had to give up their land, it had to be voluntary or there could be legal complications.
However, the Bengal government could not reject Mamata’s proposal. Industries minister Nirupam Sen said the government would think over it if she approached with “definite plans” and “proposals”.
“The land was meant for industrial activities and if she wishes to set up a railway coach factory, the state government does not have any objection to it. She should approach us with definite plans and proposals.”
The country’s first Kisan Vision project will come up in Singur, Mamata announced. “We have identified a two-acre plot adjoining the station. Agricultural produce will be sold here and a food-processing unit will also be set up,” she said.
Singur station has been granted Rs 50 lakh as a model station.

GLOOM IS TIME TO PONDER

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080920/jsp/opinion/story_9858046.jsp

GLOOM IS TIME TO PONDER

The front page of The Telegraph yesterday gave a very good indication of West Bengal’s present and future. One item told the readers that the Karnataka government had offered the Tatas the best possible terms to take the Nano project out of Singur. A second conveyed the news that the German wholesaler, Metro Cash & Carry, was evaluating its options about launching in Calcutta. And a third gave the grim tidings of a joint team from top American companies dropping Calcutta from its itinerary. The moral is clear: investors are becoming wary of putting their money in West Bengal. If all investment, as the Keynesian quip goes, is an act of faith, then investors are losing their faith fast in West Bengal. The reasons for this loss are also clear, and again the three reports serve as good illustrations. In the case of Singur, the intransigence of one political leader, Mamata Banerjee, has posed a threat to one of the biggest investments that the state has received in recent memory. In the case of Metro, the inordinate delay in getting an agri-product marketing licence has prompted the company to review its plans about staying on in West Bengal. The power to grant the licence lies with a board run by a Left Front partner, in other words with the government of the state. The American team is not coming because it no longer sees, given the post-Singur situation, West Bengal as investor-friendly. In all three cases, politics or political agitations have stood in the way of investment and economic development. The form that this agitation takes is either obstruction or disruption, and it cuts across political boundaries. The Left’s path to power in West Bengal from the mid-1960s is strewn with closed jute mills and the legacy of fleeing investors. Ms Banerjee has now decided to hoist the Left with its own petard. Her agenda is very clear. She is out to embarrass the Left Front government at any cost, even at the price of ruining the state’s chances of economic development. She also wants to project herself as a leader of the poor and the dispossessed. She is doing, perhaps consciously, exactly what the communists did to the Congress government in the 1960s. The chief minister of West Bengal wants to industrialize the state. But there is no guarantee that his party and its allies have given up the politics of obstruction and disruption. It would appear that West Bengal and the people who live here are caught in a hapless situation. This may not be the case. The people have to decide if they are prepared for industrialization and its consequences. If the answer is overwhelmingly in the affirmative, then are the people willing to take the necessary political steps to ensure that industrialization can proceed unhindered, and work culture allowed to flourish? It is easy always to blame politicians. But in a democracy, politicians are also of the people.

The ABP group's take on the current situation in Singur

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080802/jsp/opinion/story_9632925.jsp

BENGAL: THE DARK AGES

The head of Tata Motors, Ravi Kant, has posed an extremely critical question to the people of West Bengal. Irked by the continuing violence at the Tata Motors plant in Singur, and his patience obviously at the end of its tether, he said that the people of the state will have to decide whether they want industrialization or not. Behind this question lurks an even bigger poser. The people of West Bengal will have to decide if they want to inhabit a modern age with modern values and institutions, or go back to the dark ages with its obscurantist values and medieval institutions. There is a pronounced streak among large sections of the people of West Bengal — even educated and intelligent ones — of opposition to the industrialization of the state. They refuse to allow land to be transferred from agriculture to industry, and to stop this process they are not averse to the use of the most appalling kind of violence. What is significant is that those members of the intelligentsia who walked on the streets to protest against the violence in Nandigram have not issued even a letter of protest against the unprovoked assault on an engineer working on the Tata Motors plant in Singur. Presumably, the belief is that violence to stop industrialization is justified. The Luddites of early 18th century England seem to have returned to haunt 21st century West Bengal.

There is very little realization that if industrialization does not happen in West Bengal, the immediate result will be economic stagnation. The impact of this stagnation will inevitably be felt on society and its institutions. What economic backwardness can bring about was highlighted by the news item that in a village in Murshidabad, a kangaroo court ordered that a man be beheaded because he had married a girl from another community. This incident happened not in the middle ages, but in the 21st century; it happened in a state that boasts of its enlightenment and of something called the Bengal Renaissance. The beheading of a man and the existence of such things as the kangaroo courts reveal how shallow modern values are in West Bengal, and how perilously close the state is to reverting back to pre-modern times and mores.

The reason for this plight is not difficult to pinpoint: the absence of education. Education has not progressed because of lack of financial resources, which have been in short supply because of the economic stagnation of the state. Yet, the people of West Bengal refuse to acknowledge the reality that surrounds them. They continue with an antiquated and irresponsible radicalism. The choice before the people of West Bengal is stark. And this choice has nothing to do with which party they want in power. It has to do with the future of the state. Opposition to industrialization opens the door to the dark ages. Industrialization opens a window to the modern world and to economic growth. The people of West Bengal can decide to live or to commit collective hara-kiri.

See also:

http://development-dialogues.blogspot.com/2007/02/telegraph.html

http://development-dialogues.blogspot.com/2008/05/nandi-frets-singur-eats-fruits.html

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A letter to the editor of The Telegraph which was not published:

To
The Editor,
The Telegraph,
Kolkata

Sub: re http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080802/jsp/opinion/story_9632925.jsp

Dear Sir,
I hereby register my strong disapproval of the article published in your newspaper on August 2, 2008 entitled ' BENGAL: THE DARK AGES'. The article states: "The people of West Bengal will have to decide if they want to inhabit a modern age with modern values and institutions, or go back to the dark ages with its obscurantist values and medieval institutions". Let me point out that the term 'dark age' and the practice of associating it with 'obscurantist values and medieval institutions' has long been discarded. The outdated practices that the article criticises, are no doubt, related to agriculture, which must, according to the author of this article, be allowed to make way for industry. However, I must bring to your notice that in a report entitled 'Land trend alarming: Minister' of July 26, 2008 in The Telegraph the reporter informs the readers that "...the amount of farmland that got converted for industrial use is about 1.2 lakh acres. That is something alarming and, if this trend continues, we are going to face serious problems in the future. The minister iterated his concern for food security."
The article published on August 2 goes on to argue "What economic backwardness can bring about was highlighted by the news item that in a village in Murshidabad, a kangaroo court ordered that a man be beheaded because he had married a girl from another community...The reason for this plight is not difficult to pinpoint: the absence of education. Education has not progressed because of lack of financial resources, which have been in short supply because of the economic stagnation of the state." Economic backwardness is not synonymous with an absence of ethical sense. Not only is this a very broad and facile generalization but it is also very inappropriate. Is the author of the article trying to suggest that anybody who comes from an economically advanced background is endowed with a better sense of right and wrong than a person coming from a less privileged background? Have we forgotten the images from Abu-Gharib and the horrific reports of deeds committed by US soldiers in Iraq? And that the education system has failed is solely the responsibility of the state government. How can a small car factory in Singur ensure that the state-run primary schools function properly or that the textbooks are updated, corrected and revised on a regular basis or that girls are encouraged to complete their education?
The article concludes thus: "Opposition to industrialization opens the door to the dark ages. Industrialization opens a window to the modern world and to economic growth. The people of West Bengal can decide to live or to commit collective hara-kiri." The author has probably confused suicide with hara-kiri which are not one and the same thing. I would like to draw your attention to the dramatically rising figures of farmers' suicides in India and this includes Singur famers like Haradhan Bag, Prashanta Das and Shankar Patra.


Thank you,
Madhura Chakraborty

NO VELVET GLOVE

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1061205/asp/opinion/story_7092106.asp

Violence has only one antidote: counter-violence. In this context, the actions of the police at Singur on Saturday had one major flaw. They were woefully inadequate. Bleeding heart radicals may find such a statement to be too harsh, but the facts speak otherwise. The police were victims of an unprovoked attack by a bunch of hoodlums who have taken cover under the umbrella of an antiquated and discredited ideology called Maoism. The vast majority of the people who attacked the police on Saturday were not inhabitants of the affected villages in Singur. They were outsiders who had come in with a pre-meditated plan to provoke violence and cause disruption. The police posted in Singur to protect government officials and workers who were carrying out the fencing, were utterly unprepared to meet the attack that was launched by self-styled Maoists. One reason for the unpreparedness was the fact that they had been ordered by the chief minister, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, not to carry rifles. Mr Bhattacharjee must decide whether he is the chief minister of West Bengal committed to industrialization or he is a closet Gandhian, and, therefore, coy about using state power to suppress Maoists. The menace of Maoist violence is not new to West Bengal. When it had first surfaced in the late Sixties and early Seventies, it was eradicated through counter-violence. Mr Bhattacharjee must learn from that experience and nip the present movement in the bud before Maoist weeds strangle the hundred flowers of West Bengal.
West Bengal is poised at what is arguably the most critical phase of its history. If Mr Bhattacharjee’s efforts to bring investment to the state fail, the people of West Bengal can begin to prepare for their own mass funeral. Bengalis have a congenital propensity to scupper their own best prospects. This is the only charitable explanation that is possible for the opposition being expressed to the setting up of a car factory in Singur. This also explains why people like Ms Medha Patkar and Mr Rajnath Singh, instead of opposing the taking away of land from farmers in Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh, flock to West Bengal.
Mr Bhattacharjee, because he is committed to the economic development of West Bengal, must be ruing his party’s track record on violence and disruption. The bandh call on December 14 is looming over him. A left-sponsored bandh, like the violence in Singur, can only send out the worst possible signals to potential investors. Mr Bhattacharjee must quell violence with a strong hand. He must at the same time convince the Centre of Indian Trade Unions that a bandh is not possible on December 14, and if it does happen, the state administration will oppose it without any qualms. Mr Bhattacharjee must demonstrate that he is the chief minister of West Bengal and not the chief minister of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).