A few simple and clear issues are possibly being pushed to the backyard in the political storm kicked off by the dream car factory at Singur. Can any sensible person guarantee that for a particular land acquisition attempt by the govt all owners of the land pieces will agree to part with his/her land willingly? Possibly not-as otherwise the history of civilisation would have been written differently. The giant factories, dams, wide modern highways, rail links would not have seen the light of the day if the govt waited for all affected landowners to wiillingly sell their land for the public purposes concerned. At Singur, more than 12,000 landowners have collected their cheques and about 2000 people are still unwilling to hand over their land. Some portions of the acquired land are covered by ownership controversies resulting in hold-up of the cheques. West Bengal's sufferings started with the partition of Bengal and the people who migrated from East Pakistan were shabbily treated by the central govt.Except a handful of showpieces like Durgapur Steel and CLW, the central govt systematically deprived WB in the matter of industrialisation by refusing industrial licences. Now CM Buddhadeb is earnestly trying to recover the lost ground and rightly using his authority to grant special concessions for attracting industrialists like Tatas, Jindals, etc. The Trinamool Congress with indirect encouragememnt from the INC is desperate to nullify the efforts-this must be opposed.
