A TIMELINE

of
SINGUR
(18 May 2006 – 15 June 2008)

A Mazdoor Mukti Publication

PROFILE

“Singur is in Hooghly district, 45 kilometers from Kolkata. The nearest railway stations are
Singur, Kamarkundu and Madhusudanpur. The farmland earmarked for the project stands
alongside an arc of the Durgapur expressway near the Ratanpur crossing with NH-1. The six
mouzas whose land falls under the Tata project site are GopalNagar, BeraBeri, Bajemelia,
Khaserbheri, SingherBeri and JoymollarBeri. They stand on the other side of the project site
completing the expressway's arc into a circle. According to a govt. Statistical Handbook on
Singur block, 83%of the land is irrigated and the crop density is 220%. The crops produced
are mainly paddy and potato but jute and a variety of vegetables are also grown in the fields.
There are five modern cold storages and a host of wholesaler's sheds (arat) in Ratanpur-
Singur town.
“According to the People’s Survey carried out by Sanhati Udyog in November, the
landholdings in Singur are small with very few owners having more than 2 bighas (0.66
acres). Hence, there are more than 11,000 land holdings. Of a total of 6,000 families that will
be affected, about 3500 farming households work on their own fields and can be called poor
or subsistence farmers. According to them there are about 1200 unregistered sharecropping
Bargadars. But a Status Report on Singur circulated by the CPM Delhi State Secretary, P S
Grewal talks of only 237 recorded Bargadars and about 170 unrecorded.
“According to the Sanhati Udyog Report there are a large number of migrant workforces.
About 1000 wage-labourers, arrive daily from Bardhaman, Bankura and other parts of the
Hooghly district to earn their livelihood from agricultural activities. Around 800 labourers,
mostly adivasis from Jharkhand, are seasonal migrants who work the fields for six-eight
months and earn just about enough to feed their families back home for the whole year.
There are also several permanent migrant families who had come two or three decades ago
and settled down in Singur.
“A majority of non-farming households in Singur are employed in agriculture-related
occupations. 450-500 cycle-cart drivers transport crops and agricultural inputs to and from
the fields, nearly 200 households are engaged in animal husbandry and over 150 households
are vegetable vendors in Howrah, Sealdah, Chuchura and the two local markets. The cold
storages in Rantanpur employ about 500 labourers.”

BACKGROUND

In May 2006, the West Bengal Government decided to acquire 997 acres (initially 1013 acres
were asked for) for the Tata Motors small car factory in Singur of Hooghly district.. Almost
6,000 families, including many agricultural workers and marginal peasants will loose their
land and livelihoods. Though the State Government has decided to compensate the land
owners, no policy has been taken for the landless agricultural workers, unrecorded bargadars
and other rural households who are indirectly dependent for their livelihood on land and
agricultural activities. Almost all the land owners had also expressed their unwillingness to
give their land from the inception of the project, but these appeals have fallen on deaf ears.
The Tata Project: According to news reports in the month of May 2006, just after the
victory of the Left Front in the election of the Legislative Assembly for the seventh time
consecutively, a meeting was held between Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, CM of West Bengal and
Ratan Tata, the Chairman of Tata Company. In this meeting, it was officially announced that
over 1000 acres of the land of Singur block would be acquired since the Tata Motors would
build a small car plant. It was also said that the land acquisition would take place shortly as
Tata Motors wanted to launch a new One-lakh-Rupee car model by the year 2008. According
to Mr. Nilotpal Basu, CPI(M) MP (as stated by him to a delegation that met him on the 7th
December), the Tatas had been shown 5 different pieces of land and they chose Singur.
The only official document publicly available on the project, the Gazette notification under
sec 4(1) of the Land Acquisition Act 1894 between 19th and 24th July states that the “land as
mentioned in the schedule below is likely to be needed to be taken by the Government/
Government undertakings/ Development Authorities, at the public expense for a public
purpose viz., employment generation and the socio economic development of the area by
setting up a Tata Small Car project”.

2
2006
18 May: Announcement of Singur Deve-
lopment at the Chief Minister - Tata Joint
Press Conference in Kolkata. Ratan Tata said
today that his aim was still to turn out the
small car at a price of Rs 1 lakh, which he
had announced some three years ago, and
that it will be another two years before the
vehicles actually roll out. With chief minister
Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, and surrounded by
top group executives, he said Tata Motors
had decided to locate the project at Singur in
Hooghly. For the first time, Tata revealed that
the project, to be spread over 700 acres with
another 300 kept aside for ancillary
production, and will create 10,000 jobs, direct
and indirect. “We have come to believe that
Bengal is the most investor-friendly state in
the country. Someone had to turn that belief
into reality. The investment is a reflection that
the Tata group has faith in the investment
climate and the government of Bengal,” Tata
said. Bhattacharjee, who let Tata do the
talking, was modest. Asked what is expected
of the government in the next five years, he
said: “I will only try to be a performer.
25 May: The struggle of a substantial
number of the people of Singur against the
land acquisition began from day one when
the Tata company representatives and the
officials went to see the land. The people
refused to let them reach their fields and
blocked their way and the Tata team had to
be rescued by the police.
26 May: Angry farmers of Singur today
demanded that the chief minister assure
them of jobs in it. If their demand is not
fulfilled, they will continue their agitation and
not let the government take their land.
30 May: Mr. Nirupam Sen, state comm-
erce and industries minister was greeted with
black flags in Singur today by members of
Krishi Jomi Raksha Committee, an apolitical
organization of farmers and labourers of
Singur. The farmers were protesting against
the state government allowing Tata Motors to
set up an automobile plant on agricultural
land.
1 June: About 3,000 villagers today stag-
ed a demonstration in front of the office of
the Singur block development officer against
the government’s move to acquire farmland
for the Tata Motors project. The Tatas have
chosen the site in Hooghly district, about 45
km from Calcutta, for their small-car project.
Local Trinamool MLA Rabindranath Bhatta-
3
charyya was with the protesters throughout
the demonstration to express his support.
The villagers, under the banner of the
Krishijami Banchao Committee (Save Farm-
land Committee), brought out a process-ion
around noon. Waving sickles, ploughs and
brooms, they shouted slogans against chief
minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and
industries minister Nirupam Sen. The prote-
sters carried placards with slogans like Krishi
jami aamader bhitti, tabu Budhhar eki kukirti
(Farmland is our livelihood, but look at
Buddha’s [Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s] mis-
deed) and Jamir dalal Nirupam Sen Singur
theke door hato (Land broker Nirupam Sen
stay off Singur). Sen had visited Singur on
Tuesday (30 May) to explain to the villagers
about compensation they would get for land
given to the government. He had also tried to
convince farmers that it made more sense for
them to sell their land instead of using it for
cultivation. The protesters, with about 1,000
women at the head, gathered at the BDO’s
office and demonstrated for two hours
against the government’s move to dispossess
farmers of their farmland. They submitted a
deputation to BDO Abhijit Mukherjee who
said he was yet to receive a government
order for acquisition of land and was not in a
position to shed light on the issue. The
villagers came to talk about land acquisition
but I told them that the district magistrate is
empowered to deal with the issue.
17July: Work on acquisition of land for
Tata Motors’ factory for producing small cars
at Singur has begun with the West Bengal
Industrial Development Corporation submit-
ing its proposals to Hooghly DM Mr Vinod
Kumar. The state government will acquire a
little more than 1,000 acres through the
WBIDC for transfer to the Tatas. “The
proposal reached my office last week. At the
moment, the WBIDC wants only 25 per cent
of the enterprise’s requirement. We will issue
a land acquisition notice in the near future.
Farmers whose land is to be taken will have a
month’s time formally to lodge their claims
and to raise objections, if any,” said Mr
Kumar. The proposal will go to the land and
land reforms department tomorrow, after
which it is to be placed before the minister
concerned for the go-ahead to be given.
When it comes through, notifications will be
issued. The state government has said it will
have acquired land within six months of the
notices being issued. In another devel-
opment, farmers led by the Trinamool
Congress’ member of the legislative Assembly
from Singur, Mr Robindranath Bhattacharjee,
lodged protests with Mr Kumar today, alleging
the state government was trying to remove
them from land they owned. The farmers also
submitted a memorandum to Mr Kumar,
saying they would fight “with all their might”
any effort to acquire land. Mr Kumar, though,
said the memorandum had been submitted
on behalf of the Trinamool Congress and not
by any farmers’ organisation.
19-24 July: Ignoring the people's voice
the Government issued 13 notices under
Section 9 (1) of the Land Acquisition Act of
1894 to the affected farmers.
24 July: The Durgapur Expressway was
blocked as a protest.
8 August: Mr Ratan Tata said here today
that he was hopeful about Tata Motors’
proposed plans of setting up a car factory at
Singur. Mr Tata was speaking to reporters on
the sidelines of Tata Tea’s 43rd annual
general meeting. He said that everywhere in
the world, land have been acquired to set up
construction units and even Special Economic
Zones (SEZs). So he hoped that the state
government would give the land to the
company. He said that Tata Motors had no
intention of shifting to another place for the
car factory.
Meanwhile, nearly 5,000 locals who had
gathered from several villages around Singur,
today demonstrated in front of the
Gopalnagar gram panchayat office protesting
against the state government’s decision to
acquire land at Singur for Tata’s small car
project.
18 August: Notice issued under Section 9
(1) of the Land Acquisition Act of 1894; dem-
onstration held by the peasants of Singur.
22 August: Some 5,000 Singur farmers
today gheraoed the block development
officer’s office and held up hearings on claims
and objections to acquisition of land - for the
Tata Motors car factory - by first disallowing
officials to proceed to the camp and later
boycotting the hearing when the officers did
manage to get there under police escort. In
Singur, farmers under the banner of Singur
Krishi Jomi Raksha Committee demonstrated
in front of the BDO’s office since this morning
brandishing brooms and sticks. Officials
assigned to conduct the hearing were
gheraoed. Later, the gherao was withdrawn
and officials were permitted to enter the
block office. Even as the agitation gained
4
momentum, a top Tata Motors executive said
that the company was not looking for an
alternative site for its factory. “The small car
is expected to roll out from the plant at
Singur by 2008,” Tata Motors deputy chief
(strategic sourcing department), Mr BB
Parekh told reporters on the sidelines of a
seminar in the city on ‘‘Prospects of
development of the auto component industry
in West Bengal’’ organised by Bharat
Chamber of Commerce today. He said that
the delay in land acquisition would not be a
hindrance to meeting the 2008 deadline and
expressed satisfaction with the state
government for the manner in which it was
handling the situation. “Nothing is lacking on
the part of the West Bengal government,” he
said. A huge police contingent, including
Rapid Action Force personnel, deployed in
front of the BDO’s office. According to a
district admin-istrative official, 1010 farmers,
who had protested against land acquisition
were asked by the district administration to
attend the hearing today. As none of them
turned up, the hearing couldn’t be held.
Meanwhile the leaders of SKJRC has
threatened to fight against any attempts of
displacing farmers from their land till last drop
of blood.
28 August: Calcutta High Court today
heard a writ petition challenging the proposed
land acquisition at Singur for a car-manu-
facturing unit there. Mr Justice Pranab Kumar
Chattopadhyaya directed the State to file an
affidavit. The matter will be heard after the
Puja vacation. The state land and land
reforms minister, Mr Abdur Rezzak Mollah,
today said land acquisition in Singur would be
completed before the Pujas.
29-31 August: Notice issued under Sect-
ion 6 of the Land Acquisition Act of 1894.
When the authorities went to deliver final
notices at BeraBeri between 29th and 31st
August, the women barricaded the way and
prevented the officials from pasting notices
on their walls.
By September 27, the land department will
hand over to the West Bengal Industrial
Development Corporation all the 1,013 acres
Tata Motors needs at Singur in Hooghly
district to put up its small-car plant. Any day
after that, the corporation can transfer the
land to the Tatas. Abdur Rezzak Mollah’s land
and land reforms department received the
proposal from Tata Motors on July 21 and the
process of acquisition was flagged off in two
days. Mollah said the pace of acquisition was
an “all-India record”. He had earlier promised
the process would be completed within three
to six months. If the process is completed by
September 27, it would have taken just two
months. Acquisition is being rushed through
in the face of protests organised by
Opposition Trinamool Congress. By the end of
the day today, the Hooghly district
administration had received around 450
consent forms from farmers voluntarily
handing over land measuring 303 acres.
Officials said the date for receiving consent
forms was extended on August 28 following
assurances from the local Krishak Sabha, the
CPM farmers’ organisation, that it would
persuade the owners to hand over land
willingly. “All consent counters at Singur will
be kept open past August 31 right up to the
date of announcing compensation,” land
reforms commissioner Sukumar Das said. The
land department today issued notices
declaring that the government would acquire
six portions totalling 507.8 acres “in public
interest”. Farmers owning parts of these
507.8 acres have been given 10 days to
submit their consent to the acquisition.
September: The latest notification to the
Environment Impact Assessment Act, in
September, 2006, vests the states with more
power and the people with lesser scope to
participate in the decision-making process.
The ministry of rural development opened the
draft of the new National Rehabilitation and
Resettlement Policy briefly for public scrutiny
in October. The formulation and re-
formulation of these legislations and policies
are rather exclusionary and undemocratic. In
the issue of People’s Democracy dated 11
September, 2005, Prakash Karat justified the
amendment to the West Bengal Land Ceiling
Act by saying that it was meant to acquire
41,000 acres lying locked in closed industrial
complexes around Kolkata.
1 September: More than 100 villagers
from Santoshimatola in Singur prevent
officials from entering their villages to serve
notice to acquire land. Because of protest
demonstration keeping women in the
forefront in Bajemelia district authorities
flee—work of issuing notices is abandoned.
The state land and land reforms minister,
Mr Abdur Razzak Molla today admitted:
“Although a third of the land holders have
given consent we have to plug all loopholes
because the disgruntled lot might move court.
The situation is complex at Singur.”
5
4 September: An international Fact Find-
ing Mission (FFM) was held in Singur to look
into the looming eviction of farming comm-
unities as a result of the construction of Tata
Corporation of a facility in the area. As a
result of this FFM, a report on the situation of
the community was drafted. Moreover, an
online petition letter addressed to the
government of West Bengal and to the United
Nations Commission on Human Rights was
posted in the PCFS website. The letter urges
these offices to look into the planned eviction
of the farming communities in Singur, West
Bengal.
20 September: The West Bengal Gov-
ernment declared that the lands at Singur, for
which notification was issued earlier under
Land Acquisition Act of 1894, have been vest
absolutely in the Government, free from all
encumbrances.
21 September: The award was declared.
Through the month of September, the issue
got raised at multiple platforms outside
Singur, in Kolkata too. There was a clear
message from the various meetings that the
Government must not forcibly evict people
and must review its stand on Singur. The
Government however, moved according to
plan and on paper acquired the land on the
20th September 2006.
25 September: Land acquired. The
events (The day the Govt decided to hand out
compensations) showed that the Government
would go to any extent to evict the people
and hand over the land to the company
officials, more than four hundred people
including several women and children were
brutally assaulted and about 78 activists were
arrested which included 27 women, MP
Mamata Bannerji and MLA Rabindranath
Bhattacharya. At around 1:40 am in the night
the RAF and the police attack a few thousand
men-women-children who had been
protesting peacefully all day. Few hundred
persons are injured. The government had
announced publicly that cheques for
compensation would be issued to the
landowners of Singur whose lands have been
vested in the government. The assembled
villagers at BDO Singur were upset that their
voice had not been given a platform and that
the Government was unilaterally working on
this project. About 5000 people including
about 2000 women workers had peacefully
demons-trated at the Block Development
Office at Singur against the distribution of
cheques to the peasants under the banner of
"Singur Krishi Jami Raksha Committee". The
protest was an all night one. The dissenting
farmers wanted the administration to carry
out mutation for their land titles too.
However, they were told that only if they
gave their consent letters would it be carried
out.
The struggle of the people nevertheless
continued in a democratic and peaceful
fashion the next few months. Marches, rallies,
public hearings got organized in Singur and
Kolkata. They were joined by several
organisations and eminent people like
Professors from Jadavpur University, Human
Rights and other social action groups, trade
unions and all political parties other than
those of the left front from all over W.
Bengal. Former Chief Justices of the Supreme
Court and former Prime Minister VP Singh all
urged the Government, met the Governor and
wrote to the PM and President and Central
Government to not evict the people and give
the TATA's alternative land.
Trinamool supremo Miss Mamata Banerjee
announced a 24-hour “general strike”, (read
Bangla bandh) on 9 October in protest
against land acquisition at Singur, tonight.
27 September: As a sign of civil dis-
obedience, the Socialist Unity Centre of India
and CPI (ML) Liberation called for a 12 hour
bandh (protest or general strike) in Singur on
27 September. Moreover, a meeting of the
NGO’s/ CSO’s was held on the same date
protesting against the attack of the police on
the peasants of Singur, particularly on the
peasant women.
Sonia Gandhi’s Congress today sought to
project itself as a responsible Opposition
party in Bengal as it rolled out the welcome
mat for Ratan Tata and his proposed car
project in Singur. While rallying behind
Mamata Banerjee in her bid to get Tata to
relocate the project, Congress leaders
stressed that they didn’t want the protest to
come in the way of Tata’s dream — to roll out
a Rs 1-lakh car from Bengal — or Buddhadeb
Bhattacharjee’s vision of an industrialised
state. “Let’s make it clear, we have nothing
against Buddhadeb Bhatta-charjee’s Indus-
trialisation programme, or the Tatas’ small-
car project,” Union information and broad-
casting minister Priya Ranjan Das Munshi
said. “Ratan Tata is an ideal industrialist. We
would like to have him here,” he added. After
five years, senior Congress leaders shared
dais with Mamata today and announced a
series of protests against the police action in
6
Singur to dislodge Trinamool Congress
supporters who had laid siege to the block
office in protest against land acquisition.
Congress leaders such as Somen Mitra,
Subrata Mukherjee and Sudip Bandopadhyay
urged the government to structure an all-
party initiative and “take us (the Opposition)
into confidence”.
28 September: Rajkumar Bhool who was
injured (on 25 September) by the police
atrocities at the BDO office died. He is
declared as the first martyr of the Singur
Agricultural Land Protection Committee. By
the initiative of Trinamool Congress there is
blockage of all roads and railway lines in the
state from 11am to 12noon.
1 October: On the day of Bijoy Doshumi
night vigil is observed in the affected moujas
of Singur. All the villagers in all the villages of
Singur area switched off the lights in their
houses in the evening as a symbol of protest.
The whole area was engulfed by darkness.
Ex-chief justices of the Supreme Court
judges J. S. Verma and Rajendra Babu and
retired judge M. N. Rao write letters to Ratan
Tata to abandon Singur.
3 October: The people protested by
refusing to cook in thousands of village
houses in Singur. This is to protest against
the police atrocities and as a part of non-
violent peaceful movement.
4 October: An all party meeting by the
initiative of the government was held, but
was not attended by the major opposition
party -- Trinamool Congress boycotted. Gov-
ernment has again declared that the physical
possession of the land would be taken very
soon and the same would be handed over to
Tata before the end of this month.
9 October: A 24-hour statewide bandh or
general strike has been observed by various
political parties to protest the eviction of the
peasants. The Committee to Assist the
Struggle of Singur Peasants Against Eviction
has also supported the general strike. 6211
Bandh supporters arrested.
11 October: Claiming that Tata Motors
has been given the "best package" for its
small car project in the state, the West
Bengal government today said that about
1,000 acre required for it was already in its
possession. "The land (for the project) is
already in the possession of the state
government," Chief Minister, Buddhadeb
Bhattacharjee, told reporters at the state
secretariat here. To compete with states like
Uttaranchal and Himachal Pradesh where
exemption on excise duty and income tax was
available as per central government policy,
"we have given the best package to the
Tatas," he said.
Bhattacharjee said the state government
would not sell the land to the Tatas but lease
it out to the auto major. He said that the
state government has entered into a package
deal with the Tatas.
Later, Industry minister, Nirupam Sen,
explained that land would be given to the
Tatas on lease at a concessional rate. "The
period of lease and rental is being worked
out." "The lease may be for 99 years," he
said. Stating that the state government has
incurred a cost of Rs 148 crore for land
acquisition for the Tata project at Singur in
Hooghly district, Sen said that the entire land
would be handed over to the company by
December.
Tata Motors would spend Rs 1,000 crore
for setting up the Rs one lakh people's car
project at Singur, 35 km from Kolkata.
The company has announced that it would
launch the car by 2008. It had given an end
of the year deadline to the state government
for the land acquisition.
12 October: A deputation of the Sanhati
Udyog is sent to the Hoogly District Mag-
istrate; APDR publishes its fact-finding report
on police atrocities at the BDO office and the
murder of Rajkumar Bhool.
15 October: Because of police atrocities
in Singur on 25 September, Shame Day is
observed.
16 October: Unidentified goons, allegedly
backed by the CPI(M), damaged a water
pumping station at Madhyapara in Singur last
night to prevent irrigation of potato farms in
the area. It seems to be a pressure tactic to
force agitating farmers of Singur to give up
their land for the proposed small car factory.
Farmers said that goons vandalised the water
pumping station at the “behest of the CPI(M)”
to stop them from cultivating their land. The
state government had issued a prohibitory
order restricting farmers from using land for
agricultural purposes ahead of the comm.-
encement of the land acquisition process in
Singur. But villagers who opposed land
acquisition flouted the order and continued
with farming. The pumping station, set up 30
years ago by the state government to
facilitate multi-crop farming in Beraberi and
Bajemelia moujas has been the only source of
water for the farmers. Farmers said that the
goons went on the rampage in the pumping
7
station, snapped its power connection and
damaged parts of the water pipelines. The
Singur police began a probe but nobody could
be arrested till late tonight. “An incident took
place near the pumping station last night, but
no complaint has been lodged with us. We
are probing the case,” said Mr Priyobrata
Baxi, officer-in-charge, Singur police station.
The incident occurred 20 days ahead of
commencement of potato farming. The
pumping station used to provide water for
farming potato, paddy and jute in Bajemelia
and Beraberi moujas which have been ear-
marked for the small car project.
The Congress today made it clear that the
party’s joining hands with Miss Mamata
Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress will only be
“based on issues” in West Bengal, like their
common “issue-based agitation” to protest
the Left Front government’s alleged “anti-
farmers policy” in Singur, and not part of “any
blind poll alliance”.
17 October: 10 universities of the state
and 130 faculty members of IIT request the
governor to intervene to stop the forceful
eviction of peasants in Singur.
18 October: More than a 1000 women
from Singur protest in front of the Tata
Center at Kolkata.
21 October: As a protest, no lights were
lit in the villages of Singur on the night of
Diwali.
23 October: A water-pumping station in
Singur’s Kolepara village was vandalised last
night by unidentified goons allegedly backed
by Communist Party of India-Marxist leaders
wanting to stop supply to 65 acres of
farmland owned by people unwilling to cede
their plots for a Tata Motors factory to come
up. The station, built by the State Minor
Irrigation Corporation in 1978 for multi-crop
farming, is the sole source of water for the
farmers of Kolepara, Gopalnagar, Sanapara
and villages close to Gopalnagar. A week
earlier, a pumping station in Singur’s
Madhyapara was left badly damaged after a
raid by ruffians. The culprits are yet to be
detained though an assistant engineer of the
state water resources, investigation and dev-
elopment department lodged a complaint with
Hooghly police last week. The complaint was
urged by Mr Nandagopal Bhattacharjee, the
departmental minister. Mr Ranjit Mullick, chief
operator of the Kolepara facility, said: “More
than 65 acres in Gopalnagar, Kolepara,
Sanapara receive water from the pumping
station vandalised last night. It has three
rooms and the criminals broke into the one
with a transformer in it. They snapped the
power link and stole transmission cables
worth a few lakh of rupees. The theft came to
my notice around 8 am today when I found
the door open.”
26 October: Hailing Tata Steel’s takeover
of Corus as an example of the Tatas’
reputation as a world-class manufacturer, the
CPM is asking people of West Bengal to
welcome the Tata Motors’ small-car project in
Singur. While the Tata Group has many
interests in West Bengal, notes the editorial in
Ganashakti, the CPM mouthpiece, ‘‘the
group’s decision to choose Singur for its
small-car project will be a boon for the
manufacturing industry, and attract more
investments to the state’’.
27 October: Social activist Ms Medha
Patkar today warned the state government of
a law and order breakdown in Singur if force
was exerted to acquire farm land while the
well-known litterateur and social activist, Mrs
Mahasweta Devi, said CPI(M) workers have
no right to call themselves Marxists because
they have been “systematically hoodwinking
people.” They were addressing a rally
organised by Singur Krishi Jami Raksha
Committee at Bajemelia hospital ground this
afternoon.
Public Hearings organized, which was
chaired by Medha Patkar and had
Mahashweta Devi, Justice Malay Sengupta
and Dipankar Sengupta as members, were
creative and democratic ways of giving a
platform to the voices challenging the
acquisition.
Regarding the consent of the people, all
the nine meetings held were with party
representatives and panchayat members but
not with any gram sabha or with the project
affected. It is required under the 74th
Amendment of the Constitution and must
happen, even at this late stage. It is clear
that no project details were provided to the
gram panchayat nor was its consent sought,
as reported to a panel for public hearing on
October 27, 2006, by Dhud Kumar Dhara, a
member of the gram panchayat.
30 October: In a balancing act in the
midst of controversy over proposed acqu-
isition of land for the Tatas’ car project,
former chief minister Jyoti Basu on Monday
sounded a note of caution for acquiring multi-
crop land by the Left Front government in
West Bengal for setting up industries.
8
31 October: Country's leading car manu-
facturer Tata Motors today said it would roll
out its Rs 1 lakh car in the second half of
2008, from its proposed plant at Singur in
West Bengal. However, the company would
start manufacturing the cars at its proposed
plant "well before that", Tata Motors Man-
aging Director Ravi Kant today said, without
specifying any timeframe. Speaking to
reporters after announcing the company's
second quarter results of the current fiscal,
Kant said that the company has sought for
970 acres of land, of which Tata Motors
would use more than 60 per cent and the rest
by ancillary companies.
3 November: Citizens’Convention by the
Citizen’s Mancha in Kolkata. Ten complaints
are filed against the government. A Public
meeting was organized by SUCI in Singur.
5 November: Trinamool Congress sup-
remo Mamata Banerjee on Sunday asked the
Tatas to shift their proposed small car project
from farmland in West Bengal's Singur and
gave a 12-day ultimatum to the state
government to announce that industries
would not be set up on agricultural land.
However, the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee-
government expressed determin-ation to go
ahead with the project.
7 November: West Bengal government
started deploying huge contingents of armed
police and the Rapid Action Force and setting
up camps at several places in the area.
Plainclothes police informers have been
openly moving around in the villages
gathering information about resistance plans.
Armed policemen have been posted in the
village squares and the markets to keep
watch on the villagers' movements.
The process of land acquisition in South
24-Parganas has been kicked off with the
urban development department sending a
proposal to the district administration for
construction of district headquarters at
Baruipur. The initial proposal for acquisition of
498 acres of land was sent a week ago. This
is the first proposal for land acquisition to be
submitted in the district where huge
acquisitions are on the anvil for shifting the
district headquarters to Baruipur from Alipore
and for various projects of the Salim group
including two townships. According to the
agreement between the state govern-ment
and the Salim group, the latter will pay the
cost of land acquisition in Baruipur to KMDA
for the construction of the district
headquarters. The land earmarked for district
headquarters is spread over five mouzas
including Jagadishpur.
17 November: Traffic virtually came to a
stand still on Central Avenue in the afternoon
as thousands of lathi-wielding Trinamool
Congress activists marched along the road,
carrying party flags, placards and shouting
slogans. People returning home from offices
had a harrowing time as the party workers
protested against the acquisition of cultivable
land by the state government in Singur for
industrial purposes. The dandi march, which
was scheduled to start at 1:30 p.m.,
ultimately commenced around 3:30 p.m. from
near the Mahatma Gandhi statue on Mayo
Road.
19 November: Farmers opposing land
acquisition in Singur today took out a rally
against deployment of policemen in five
camps, accusing them of “terrorising”
villagers under the “influence of CPI(M)
leaders” to stop them from sowing potatoes.
Anticipating trouble from agitating farmers,
the district authorities have thrown a strong
security cover in Singur by deploying more
than 800 policemen at five “strategic points”
while they fence 997 acres. Farmers allege
lack of consent on their part. More than 7,000
farmers including 800 women took out a
procession from Bajemelia hospital grounds
under the banner of Singur Krishi Jomi
Raksha Committee (SKJRC) this evening
demanding “immediate withdrawal” of police
from Bajemelia, Chagalveri, Khaserveri and
Joymollah villages. They also organised sit-ins
before the police pickets. The procession
ended at Khaserveri where SCJRC’s convener
Mr Becharam Manna addressed the
gathering. Supporters of political outfits like
CPI(ML), SUCI and CPI(ML) New Democracy
and members of Association for Protection of
Democratic Rights (APDR) also attended.
25 November: Teachers of various uni-
versities and premier academic institutes
staged a protest in Kolkata against the
acquisition of multi-crop agricultural land for
industrialisation. A large number of teachers,
under the banner of Teachers and Scientists
against Maldevelopment, also joined in the
sit-in demonstration. Tarun Kanti Naskar and
Abhee Dutta Majumdar, joint conveners of
the forum, have criticised the government’s
“anti-peasant role” and pledged to extend
moral support to the “struggling farmers”.
26 November: A section of villagers in
Singur has started preparing to resist the
Hooghly district administration’s physical
9
occupation of acquired land today. In some
cases, the administration had issued cheques
to owners whose claims were doubtful,
Trinamool Congress chairperson Mamata
Banerjee said. In 50 cases, objections had
been filed. Mamata would lead an agitation in
Singur on Sunday to sow potatoes. West
Bengal Industrial Devel-opment Corporation
officials have collected consent letters from
30 landowners during the day after visiting
Gopalnagar village. The district authorities
have made a strong police bandobast. Around
6,000 additional policemen would be
deployed. They are also controlling the
movement of vehicles on the Durgapur
Expressway in view of Mamata’s threat to sow
potato seeds on the plots.
30 November: State violence began to
be orchestrated once again from 30th
November, when section 144 was clamped on
the area. Trinamool activists torched buses,
blocked roads and railways and disrupted
traffic movement while protesting against the
alleged assault on their party leader Ms
Mamata Banerjee who had been barred by
police from proceeding to Singur today. Police
arrested whoever boarded down from the
train or moving towards Singur. The govern-
ment has prohibited all assemblies in the
Singur area.
1 December: The Trinamool sponsored
12-hour Bangla bandh today witnessed
sporadic violence, in which one person was
killed and some passengers were injured
when bandh supporters threw stones at
vehicles, including the Kolkata-Dhaka bus on
NH 34. Meanwhile, the state government
began fencing off the land acquired for
setting up the Tata small car factory at
Singur. While Miss Mamata Banerjee descry-
ibed yesterday’s ransacking of the Assembly
as “most unfortunate” the Left Front today
demanded “exemplary punishment” for the
Trinamool legislators involved in the incident.
The bandh also ensured that the US
ambassador, Mr David Mulford, took an early
flight out of the city, cancelling his engage-
ments. Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said in
Midnapore that the incidents over Singur
would not send any wrong signals to
investors. Meanwhile, fencing work began at
Singur amid protests. Director of Industries
Mr MV Rao said it would be completed in
three days. Officials in the industry
department said the Tatas are likely to take
possession of land in five days’ time. District
magistrate Mr Vinod Kumar said police posts
had been set up at Joymolla village within the
project site.
2 December: A memorandum seeking to
stop this “persecution” would be given to the
governor and if it continues a three-day long
bandh would be called as the last resort, Mr
Subrata Mukherjee, senior Congress leader
and a spokesman of the Krishi Jami Bachao
Committee said in a Press conference today.
People of Khaserbheri, Bera Beri and
Gopalnagar gathered to resist the fencing off
of the proposed project land. Severe police
force was used against them, several people
were injured and more than 60 people were
arrested. Several women told us that the
police not only beat up people at the project
site, but chased them into their villages and
dragged them out of their houses and beat
them. Verbal sexual abuse was used against
the women, and at least one young woman,
Deepali Moitra said that she was dragged by
her hair from under a bed in Kasherberi
where she was hiding. Medha Patkar who
went in solidarity was not allowed to enter
the affected villages by the officials and her
citizen rights of movement in the area was
curtailed.
According to eye-witnesses in the various
villages of Khaserbheri, Bera Beri, Do Bandi,
including the fact finding reports on the
violence of the 2nd brought out by
Manavadhikar Surakhsa Manch (MASUM) and
that of Paschim Banga Khet Majoor Samiti,
the state government had deployed more
than 5000 police contingent and Rapid Action
Force (RAF). The government had already
promulgated the prohibitory order u/s 144 of
Cr.P.C on the 30th November itself in Singur.
When the government officials started putting
the fence on 2nd November 2006 at about 10
AM, the local villagers resisted. The people
were already there since 6 AM and when the
officials who under police protection were
fencing the area came face to face with them
they resisted the take over as it was their last
effort to save the land. It was in this
exchange that violence broke out and police
force and RAF resorted to widespread lathi-
charge and firing tear-gas shells and rubber
bullets. The villagers told us that the police
entered the adjoining villages and mercilessly
beat and physically assaulted the villagers
indiscriminately showing no respect to the
women, old people and children. A number of
people got severe injuries due to police
brutality. The police entered the houses and
ventured into the rooftop and beat up
10
unarmed peaceful people with batons causing
bloodsheds. The police also tore clothes of
women and verbally hurled sexual abuses at
them.
According to the fact finding report of the
MASUM report dated 2.12.2006 the police
arrested more than 60 people comprising of
18 women and children. Among them, Jhuma
Patra, daughter of Mr. Ashok Patra of village
Khaserbheri, 12 years old and a student of
class-V in Naraharipara Primary School and
Soma Dhara daughter of Sanyasi Dhara of
same village, a minor were also arrested.
The Chandan Nagar Police Station filed
case nos 150 & 151 dated 2.12.2006. In both
the cases the complainant was Officer-in-
Charge of Singur Police Station, Mr. Priya
Brata Baxi. In case no. 150, according to
police version, 38 persons were arrested and
among them 4 were admitted to government
hospital. The police initiated the case under
sections 147/148/149/186/188/447/332/333/-
353/325/307 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) &
9(b) (2) of Indian Explosive Act (I.E. Act) with
9 W.B.M.P.O. Act. In the Case No. 151, ten
people were injured and one police personnel
also received injury. This case was registered
under sections 147/148/149/188/323/353/-
307 of IPC and 9(b) (2) of I.E. Act
4 December: The WB government claim-
ed that 920 acres of land has been voluntarily
handed over by the landowners.
Social activist Medha Patkar and Bharatiya
Janata Party president Rajnath Singh were on
Monday detained along with other top BJP
leaders from West Bengal on their way to
Singur, where fencing work at the Tata
Motors small car project site continued amid
strong police presence. Singh, who arrived in
Kolkata on Monday, was stopped by police at
Maitipara on Durgapur Expressway, 25 km
away from Singur and arrested along with
state party president Sukumar Banerjee and
secretary Rahul Sinha under section 151 Cr
PC. They were freed on bail immediately,
Hooghly police superintendent Supratim
Sarkar said. Patkar, who had set forth from
the city by local train with two others, had
disembarked at Sheoraphuli station on
Howrah-Bandel section and had reached
Purushottampur, 10 km away from Singur, by
autorickshaw when policemen stopped her,
threw a cordon and took her forcibly to
Dankuni. She is being kept at the CIL guest
house at Dankuni. This is the third time that
Patkar has been prevented by the police from
reaching Singur in less than a week.
 4 December: The Singur agitation intens-
ified today with Miss Mamata Banerjee going
on an indefinite hunger-strike and declaring
her moral support to tomorrow’s SUCI-
sponsored bandh. Miss Banerjee began the
hunger-strike at Esplanade in central Kolkata
after the state government had rejected her
demand for stopping fencing work at Singur
and withdrawal of police forces from the area.
Fifteen farmers, including five elderly women,
began a fast-unto-death at Singur today in
protest against police excesses and land
acquisition. Miss Banerjee declared that her
party would block roads all over the state for
two hours from 12 noon on 6 December and
march to Singur on 7 December, “come what
may”. “You get lost”, was her final message
to Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. The Trina-
mool supremo apologised for the inconven-
ience caused by bandhs. “We are not in
favour of bandhs. But there is no alternative’’.
Left Front chairman Mr Biman Bose said the
government would oppose tomorrow’s strike.
BJP chief Mr Rajnath Singh was detained on
his way to Singur and released at Dankuni, 25
km from the project site. He later shared the
dais with Miss Banerjee.
Activist Ms Medha Patkar was turned back
on her way to Singur for the second time in
four days. A habeas corpus application moved
in Calcutta High Court today complained that
Ms Patkar had been illegally detained.
The chief minister told the Assembly that
fencing work was on and would end soon.
The Tatas would be handed over land this
month, he said. Asked about an upward
revision of the compensation package for
farmers, Mr Bhattacharjee sounded positive.
On his all-party talks offer, he said only the
Congress had responded positively to it. The
chief minister, however, clarified there was no
scope for any further discussion on the “core
issue”.
The Assembly Speaker today accepted a
privilege motion against 21 Trinamool MLAs
and declared that salary and other facilities of
29 Trinamool MLAs would be suspended till
the PWD submitted a report on the total loss
of public property. The Opposition walked out
in protest against the decision. The Speaker
has decided to refer a motion against Miss
Banerjee for the Assembly ransacking to the
privilege committee of Parliament. The Singur
issue rocked Parliament also.
5 December: In spite of prohibitory ord-
ers people continued to protest in the
affected villages. In both BeraBeri and
11
Khaserbheri people were sitting on indefinite
fasts. In spite of the terror unleashed in the
area, people have started peaceably defying
Section 144.
6 December: The police stopped thou-
sands of protesters today from storming the
site of a proposed Tata factory in West
Bengal.
7 December: Rajya Sabha mp Nilotpal
Basu told a delegation that the Tatas had
been shown five different plots for the car
project. He also said that the company did
not want any other plot than the Singur one.
8 December: People spontaneously shut
down shops and took out a procession of
about 500 people when the police forcibly
took away Rabindra Bhattacharya, the local
MLA and 4 others from the Bajemelliya
Santoshimatala hunger strike camp.
10 December: The Singur Krishi Jami
Raksha Committee had a press conference in
Beraberia Purba para and presented signed
letters from farmers where the farmers
declared that "We Have Not And Will Not Give
Our Land To Tata Motors".
Shanti Ram Ghosh of Beraberi Mandirtala,
a cheque recipient announced in the press
conference that he was ready to return his
cheque and wants his land back. The
members of the Singur Krishi Jomi Raksha
Committee (SKJRC) today countered the state
government’s claim saying that the state
government was yet to receive consent from
owners of nearly 344.91 acres of land. The
state government had claimed that it had
received letters of consent from owners of
935 acres of land - earmarked for the Tatas’
small car factory in Singur. Meanwhile, 14
women have launched a fast-unto-death near
Beraberi Purbapara in Singur today in protest
against alleged “police excesses” on last
Saturday and the state government’s “false
claims”. A two-year old, Koel Das, was seen
accompanying her mother on stage. The
SKJRC has prepared a list of farmers unwilling
to let go of their land. The list was produced
before mediapersons today and would soon
be submitted to the district magistrate. Mr
Shankar Jana, joint convener of the SKJRC as
well as member of the Suci’s Hooghly district
committee said: “Owners of 344.91 acres of
land have declined to give up their land and
only Rs 67 crore has been disbursed so far by
way of compensation to farmers. The total
compensation package stands at Rs 140
crore.” The farmers claimed that the
government was yet to get letters of consent
from owners of 55.26 acres land in Beraberi
mouja and that owners of 33.47 acres land in
Khaserveri, 16.68 acres land in Joymollah,
16.98 acres land in Beraberi Bazar and
Malapara, 3.37 acres land in Ujjwal Sangha
area, 57.10 acres land in Kolaypara and
Singherveri, 63.69 acres land in Purbapara,
97.43 acres land in Gopalnagar and 0.97
acres land in Duluigacha did not agree to give
up land till today.
CPI(M) in Peoples’ Democracy stated,
"over 950 acres has the voluntary consent of
the owners who have already collected their
compensation."
11 December: West Bengal Left Front
chairman and CPI(M) politburo member
Biman Bose on Monday alleged that there
were high-profile outsiders in the garb of
social activists who were being funded by
overseas agencies to disrupt economic
development in parts of India. He exhorted
CPI(M)’s SFI--students arm to “expose such
persons”.
18 December: At about 6 a.m. the body
of a young activist of the Singur Krishi Jami
Raksha Samity, Tapasi Malik was found
burning in the fenced area. Some hair and
other articles were found near her body. It
seemed a clear case of murder. Tapasi had
on the previous day worked hard to mobilize
the children and had gone home, had dinner
and then slept. According to the family she
had probably gone to the fields in the
morning for toilet purposes when she may
have been attacked. An FIR no 156/ 18
December, 2006 was lodged under sections
302 and 201 of the IPC. The girl was
reportedly raped and murdered by miscreants
who were present within the guarded area.
The victim had entered into the fencing for
nature's call. She was about to be buried and
fire was set on her body to destroy the
evidence of crime. The villagers intervened in
such situation as fire and bad smell attracted
them. The micreants involved in the matter
fled from the spot. Therafter, Superintendent
of Police of Hooghly swung into action to
cover up the crime. Mr. Supratim Sarkar, SP
of Hooghly rushed to the place of occurrence
with a huge contingent of police force and
called father of the victim, Manoranjan Malik
and forced him to sign on a paper. The body
of the girl was brought to Serampore Walsh
Hospital for post mortem examination where
the attending doctors refused to conduct post
mortem, then the body was referred to
Calcutta Medical College and Hospital.
12
According to a fact finding team of the
Kolkata women’s groups that went
immediately to the area the murder with a
possibility of rape could have been the act of
the 195 security guards deployed by the
WBIDC and police deployed to guard the
acquired area. It was after a lot of protest by
the Krishi Jami Rakhsha Samiti and others in
Kolkata that the investigation has been
handed over to the CBI.
28 December: After 25 days of persist-
ently refusing to end fasting, Trinamool
Congress chief Miss Mamata Banerjee called
off the hunger strike today. The MP, who had
complained of a blurring vision earlier in the
day, told reporters that letters from President
Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, Prime Minister Dr
Manmohan Singh and former Prime Minister
Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee had persuaded her to
take the decision.
In Japaiguri, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee
today said the state government had
“specific” information that the rivals of the
Tatas were encouraging trouble over the car
factory project in Singur, Hooghly. The
comment comes a day after Ratan Tata
accused “some…competitors” of fuelling the
fire, adding a new dimension of corporate
intrigue to the existing political issue. In an
interview to a private television channel, Tata
had expressed the determination to see
through the project that will turn out cars
costing Rs 1 lakh at the site some 40 km from
Calcutta.
28 December: an elderly couple, who
had parted with their land for the proposed
Tata Motors small car factory at Singur, were
found dead in their house in mysterious
circumstances at Doluigacha near Ghoshpara
in Singur this morning. Police said some locals
spotted the inert bodies of Tinkari Dey (55)
and his wife Maya (50) on the floor of their
bedroom around 11.30 a.m. today. While
both bodies bore marks of injury, an electrical
cord was found cutting into each neck, Mr
Arun Gupta, IG (Western range) said. He said
preliminary investigation suggested that it
was not a case of suicide but added that
police were yet to establish the motive. He
said that the “murders” had been committed
clearly “not for gain” as no valuables or
household goods had been found missing
from the victims’ residence. Police did not find
any suicide note. Mr Gupta said the two
bodies had been sent for autopsy. “The cause
of death will be known only after we get the
reports. We have certain leads and are
working on them. Police have questioned a
few locals but no arrests have been made,”
the IG said. According to reports, Tinkari and
Maya used to live alone and their three sons
are settled in Delhi. They owned nearly 20
cottahs of land at Singerbheri -- a part of the
farmland earmarked for the Tatas’ small car
factory project area. They had parted with
their land and had collected a cheque for Rs
4.22 lakh from the Singur BDO office.
31 December: The West Bengal Govern-
ment earlier in its "STATUS REPORT ON
SINGUR, As on December 31st , 2006" had
spread the blatant lie of 96%. Now they have
rolled back the whole story (STATUS REPORT
ON SINGUR) from their website without any
explanation.
A group led by Dr. Sumit Sarkar visited
Singur.
2007
1 January: Mamata Banerjee's decision
to end her `indefinite' fast on the Singur
issue after 25 days of high-wire theatrics
brought considerable relief to West Bengal
and beyond. The relatively tame end to her
hunger strike seems to have disappointed the
ragbag of political friends — ranging from
Naxalites through communal elements to
free-floating and freelancing NGOs and
individuals — who have rallied to her Singur
cause to target the organised Left in a year it
has scored major electoral victories.
3 January: Trinamool Congress leader-
ship and members of Singur Krishi Jomi
Raksha Committee (SKJRC), today pointed
out discrepancies in the status report that
was published by the state government on 22
December and 2 January and have given a
72- hour ultimatum to the state government
to publish the list of farmers who have given
their consent for land acquisition. Listing the
discrepancies, Mr Partha Chattopadhyay,
leader of the Opposition, said that the chief
minister in his letter to Miss Mamata Banerjee
on 20 December stated that the total amount
of compensation to be paid is Rs 131.49
crore. The status report which was published
on that day also quoted the same figure. But,
yesterday, Mr Sabyasachi Sen, state industry
and commerce secretary said, the total
compensation payable for the acquired land
in Singur is Rs 119 crore. Mr Chatterjee said
that the government is making such
“dubious” statements in order to baffle the
people. A senior member of SKJRC said that
even the industry and commerce minister in
13
an interview to a private channel, said, the
total compensation package is about Rs 131
crore. He said in earlier status report stated
so far Rs 85 crore was spent as compensation
but yesterday Mr Sen said that Rs 83 crore
was disbursed so far. Earlier, in his second
letter, the chief minister stated that of the
997 acres of land needed for the project, the
state government had already acquired 954
acre of land with the consent of the farmers.
Yesterday, the state government announced
that owners of 658 acres of land in Singur of
total 997 acres acquired for Tata Motors small
car project had accepted compensation, till 31
December 2006. Mr Chattopadhyay said
earlier the state government in their status
report stated pre-award consent status -
rayati consent- 584 acre, factory consent 38
acre and vested land 34 acre which amounts
to 620 acre. The same status report stated
332 acre was awaiting for post award
consent.
7 January: Farmers of Singur alleged that
the government has stopped releasing water
from 30 deep and the mini tube-wells which
fall inside the fenced-off area. As a result,
agriculture in almost 743 acres of land in
Bajemelia, Singherveri, Khaserveri, Beraberi
and Gopalnagar, has been badly hit owing to
the non-availability of irrigation water. There
are three deep tube-wells and 27 mini tube-
wells in the area, which supply irrigation
water to almost 1600 acres of agricultural
land.
15 January: An official of Tata Motors
was manhandled and his car damaged by a
mob at Singur in Hooghly today. A four-
member team, including officials of the Com-
munity Development Programme of Tata
Motors, West Bengal Industrial Development
Corporation and a private firm had gone to
the Gopalnagar panchayat office around 12
noon to hand over railway tickets to villagers.
Tata Motors is supposed to take a team of 24
panchayat members from three panchayats
to Jamshedpur to show them the community
development programme of the Tatas. The
three panchayats are Gopalnagar, Beraberi
and Kamarkundu-Gopalnagar-Doluigacha
(KGD). As the officials were returning, they
were intercepted by nearly 70 villagers at
Sahanapara crossing off Durgapur Express-
way. The villagers gheraoed them. Five police
personnel escorting the officials tried to pacify
the mob. The villagers identified the
community development officer of the
company, Mr SB Suryakanta. They manhan-
dled him and damaged his gypsy van.
Additional police forces reached the spot and
rescued the officials. Singur Krishi Jami
Raksha Committee convener Mr Becharam
Manna, took full responsibility of the incident.
The Singur OC said no complaint had been
lodged.
The Singur Krishi Jomi Raksha Committee
today complained that the much awaited list
of consent award put out on the govern-
ment’s website contains names of 100
farmers whose land is outside the Tata small
car project area. These farmers live in
Bajemelia, Beraberi, Singerbheri and
Gopalnagar moujas.
16 January: Villagers of Sahanapara in
Singur uprooted nearly 30 pillars of the fence
and forced their way into the area earmarked
for the proposed small car project of Tata
Motor this afternoon at the site where the
manhandling incident took place yesterday.
They were chased away by a police
contingent led by ASP (HQ) Mr Asit Pal. A
picket has been posted. The incident occurred
around 2 p.m. when Trinamool leaders were
addressing a rally at Kapasaria crossing off
Durgapur Expressway near Singur. Trinamool
leaders including Mr Sanjoy Baxi, Mr Paresh
Pal and Mr Dilip Yadav entered Sahanapara
village on two motorcycles and mobilised
more than 100 farmers to organise the raid.
Policemen, posted at Sahanapara crossing off
the Durgapur Expressway, couldn’t identify
them. Later, more than 100 farmers gathered
and entered inside the fencing.‘
At the rally, Trinamool threatened to call a
72-hour strike in the state if supremo Miss
Mamata Banerjee is not allowed to visit
Singur.
19 January: Tension gripped Singur this
afternoon when GRP found the body of Astu
Malik (48), uncle of slain Krishi Jami Raksha
Committee leader Tapasi Malik. His body was
found lying on railway tracks near Chandan-
pur in Burdwan-Howrah chord section.
21 January: Initial phases of construction
work for the Tata Motors' ambitious Rs 1,000
crore small car project began with a bhoomi
puja at Singur in Hoogly district, the West
Bengal government said today. The Tata
communication came a day after the West
Bengal government extended prohibitory
orders banning the assembly of four or more
people in Singur till Jan 28 midnight following
reports that more protests could be organised
over the takeover of fertile farmland for the
small car project. Even as Singur remained
14
tense with a Tata official heckled by
protestors recently, a statement from the
company said that it had begun construction
work on Sunday, but without detailing the
exact nature of the first step. Reports from
Singur said that with over 500 policemen
present, a ' bhumi puja', a Hindu ritual prior
to starting any project, was performed at the
site, but not over the plot whose owners
claim they have not given up their land yet.
"The Tata Motors plant operation is expected
to create employment in excess of 10,000
direct and indirect jobs," the release said. The
civil construction for the plant is being
initiated by Tata Motors, it said. Singur, about
40 km from here in Hooghly district, has been
chosen by Tata for its small car project over
997 acres of land. This has triggered a violent
face-off between the government and
farmers led by civil society groups and parties
like Trinamool Congress.
22 January: A 1000-member security
squad was engaged last night for guarding
Tata Motors plant site at Singur in the wake
of yesterday’s protest during “bhoomi pujan”.
The CPI(M) cadres in the areas have also
been asked to organise round-the-clock vigil
at the site. The order under Section 144
CrPC, which was reimposed on Singur and
adjoining areas, had also been extended for
an indefinite period. Meanwhile, the
Trinamool Congress Mahila Samiti today held
demonstrations in front of the Tata
Industries' headquarters at Chowringhee,
Kolkata. The demonstrators blackened the
Tata Centre building with tar. Carrying
placards and broom sticks, they blocked the
main thoroughfares, disrupting traffic. The
aggrieved leaders also raised slogans and
burnt the effigies of Chief Minister Buddhadeb
Bhattacharjee and Ratan Tata. Describing
yesterday’s incident at Singur as a minor
event, the Chief Minister assured Tata Motors
officials that things at Singur would get
normal. He reiterated that adequate
protection would be given to Tata Motors
during the construction period and afterwards
till normalcy was restored.
23 February: Villagers at Bajemelia and
Khaserveri in Singur early today partially set
ablaze a fence around a plot where a Tata
Motors factory would come up. In the
afternoon, six villagers led by Mr Becharam
Manna, convener of the Singur Krishi Jomi
Raksha Committee, barged into the project
area to destroy a platform on which Tata
Motors had organised a puja, kicking off
construction work. The SKJRC linked the
incidents with an anti-land acquisition
agitation by displaced farmers in the area but
the Trinamool Congress sought to distance
itself from what hadhappened. “I was told
villagers had tried to set some wooden poles
on fire but no damage was done to the
platform where the puja was held,” said Mr
Kalyan Mukherjee, Chandernagore’s sub-
divisional police officer. A senior district-level
police officer said, around 3 am, the mob had
gathered around the fence at Bajemelia
Dakshinpara before setting the poles on fire
without being noticed by the policemen. The
police noticed the flames half an hour later
and rushed to the place to extinguish the fire.
Mr Manna said: “This is only the beginning. It
hints at an an armed struggle by the
displaced farmers against the state govern-
ment and Tata Motors.”. He claimed the
destruction of 50 wooden poles today though
the police pegged the number at 20.
24 January: Intellectuals, academicians
and students today joined the protests
against the state government’s policy of land
acquisition in Singur and Nandigram with a
sit-in demonstration at Esplanade.
25 January: Farmers opposed to land
acquisition in Singur twice set fire to fence
posts at the Tata car plant site early this
morning. Around 5.30 am, a group of
villagers wrapped jute bags soaked in
kerosene around 10 wooden posts and set
them on fire at Beraberi, about 50 km from
Calcutta. Police arrived about half an hour
later and doused the flames. An hour later, a
group of women came to the site and set fire
to the posts again. The police gave chase but
could not catch anybody. A police team later
raided two clubs in adjoining Bajemelia in
search of the culprits but did not arrest
anyone. This is the third time that villagers
have set fire to the fence posts since January
21, when the Tata Motors authorities
performed bhoomi puja (Land worshipping).
In Calcutta, chief minister Buddhadeb
Bhattacharjee reviewed the situation with
chief secretary Amit Kiran Deb, industries
secretary Sabyasachi Sen and other officers.
28 January: Over 40 people, including 11
policemen, were injured in clashes between
Trinamool Congress activists and police
during a TC-led farmers’ march to prohibitory
order-bound Singur where construction work
by the Tatas on a car plant entered the fifth
day today. A Tata Motors godown at Joypur
was attacked by protestors. The incidents
15
occurred at four points - Maitipara near
Dankuni toll plaza, Nalikul, Baidyabati and
Mahaeswarpur en route Singur. Some of the
injured were admitted to Walsh hospital and
the rest were brought to a private hospital at
Dankuni. About 200 villagers at Bajemelia
mouja made their way to the fenced area and
uprooted the wooden poles and set them
ablaze. Later, police who were busy keeping
“the outsiders” from entering Singur, rushed
to the spot and started beating up some
locals. It was reported that villagers from
Gopalnagar, Bajemelia, Ghoshpara not only
uprooted the poles but also set them ablaze.
Miss Mamata Banerjee has convened a
meeting of the Singur Krishi Jomi Raksha
Committee (SKRJC) at her residence tomor-
row. Trinamool Congress supporters blocked
National Highway 2 and 6 at Dankuni, They
also squatted on railway tracks at
Kamarkundu and Madhusudanpur. Inspector
General of Police (Law and Order) Mr Raj
Konojia said in Kolkata that police had to
lathicharge the agitators who resorted to
stone-throwing against security forces at
Dankuni, eight km from Singur, where police
had set up a barricade to prevent the
protestors from going to Singur. Mr Kanojia
said police also used water cannons and burst
tear-gas shells to disperse the volatile crowd.
“Eleven policemen were injured in the clashes
and four of them had to be taken to the
hospital for first aid,” he said. He said
protestors armed with bamboo poles had
gathered at four points in the district in the
afternoon to kickstart the days’ agitation
against acquisition of fertile farmland for the
Tata Motors’ project. At Maitipara, about one
km from Singur, police chased away a group
of TC activists when they tried to break the
cordon. The Trinamool Congress claimed 15
to 17 of their supporters sustained injuries in
“unprovoked” police lathicharge. Asked how
many TC supporters were injured, Mr Kanojia
said “I cannot give this figure as we have not
made any arrests”. Condemning the police
action, senior Trinamool MLA Mr Sougata Roy
said in Kolkata “this is an example how far
the Left Front government can go to act as
an agent of the Tatas. “Though prohibitory
orders under section 144 CrPC have been
imposed only in Singur police station area,
Trinamool activists were stopped far away
from Singur at places where prohibitory
orders have not been enforced. “This is a
wanton misuse of state power to curb the
democratic movement and help a particular
industrialist.” A spokesman of the Eastern
Railway said that several people blocked the
railway tracks near Kamarkundu station on
the Howrah-Burdwan chord line around 4.00
pm. Even though they were dispersed by the
police within one hour, the banana leaves
which the agitators threw on the over head
wires took time to be removed. Train services
on the chord line were disrupted for nearly
three hours. Congress leader Mr Sudip
Bandopadhyay, was allegedly gheraoed today
by the agitating Trinamool activists. Mr
Bandopadhyay, a former Trinamool MP,
claimed that when he was returning to the
city after presiding over a community
marriage ceremony at Tarakeswar, he was
accosted by TC activists at Nalikul in Hooghly
district where the demonstrators had
assembled for the party’s march to Singur.
The activists allegedly abused Bandopadhyay
and refused to let his car pass and he had to
turn back and take a detour to the city. He
was also allegedly asked by the agitators to
address a meeting explaining his party’s
“bonhomie” with CPI(M) at the national level.
9 January: CPI(M) said in People’s
Democracy, "As far as the specific violent
incidents related to Nandigram is concerned
there has been no notice issued for land
acquisition"
4 February: Nearly 150 villagers of
Beraberi and adjoining villages under Singur
Police Station assembled near the fences
erected by the administration as acquired for
Tata motors. The protest was a peaceful one
and led by Krishi Jami Rakha Committee.
When the protestors supposed to assemble
adjoining the fence at about 10.30 AM to
lodge their protest and shouted slogans, a
large number of police bodily resisted them
and resisted them to approach the fence,
though on that time the area was not under
144 Cr. P.C. The police started beating
protestors with their lathis and women were
pulled by their hairs and abusive language
was used by them, which was shown and
heard by the audio- visual medium. The
police charged tear gas shells and their aim
was absolutely toward the village and due to
that one hutment of a villager caught fire and
turned into ashes. Then number of protestors
including Ms. Anuradha Talwar of Right to
Food Network has been arrested.
5 February: Prohibitory order under
Section 144 CrPC was reimposed at the Tata
Motors small car project site in Singur
following fresh violence in the area, even as
16
Tata group chief Ratan Tata flew into Kolkata
late today evening for a meeting with Chief
Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya at an out-
of-the-way office of the state government.
After a marathon meet (lasting over two and
half hours) with Bhattacharya and state
Commerce and Industry Minister Nirupam
Sen, Tata and the chief minister fielded
questions from the media. Ratan Tata said
given the pace of work at Singur, he was
confident the small car would be rolled out by
2008. Tata was accompanied by R K Krishna
Kumar, director of Tata Sons.
7 February: Police today fired teargas
shells to chase away activists of Trinamool
Congress-led Krishi Jami Raksha Committee
(Save Farmland Committee) who entered the
fenced off area at the Tata Motors small car
project site and uprooted 14 fencing posts.
Around 100 people of the committee entered
the fenced off area at Bajemelia in Singur
bloc early on Wednesday morning to uproot
the posts. Policemen immediately launched
into action firing teargas shells to drive away
the disruptors. No arrest has been made in
this connection, Sub-Divisional Police Officer
Kalyan Mukherjee said adding, police fired 14
teargas shells. A huge police force has been
deployed at Chanditola, roughly 10 km from
Singur, in view of Wednesday's scheduled
march to Singur by the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind
opposing the land takeover for setting up
industry.
9 February: Farmers spearheading the
movement against land acquisition in Singur
dug up a stretch of the Bajemelia-Beraberi
road in an attempt to prevent police from
entering the village today. Later, Krishi Jomi
supporters tried to set a portion of a fence on
fire before police chased them away.
Two bodies found on the outskirts of
Singur on Tuesday (6 February) have been
identified as those of Jyoti Prakash Biswas, an
engineering diploma holder who worked for a
company that provided earth-moving equip-
ment, and his driver. Police suspect they were
strangled to death and dumped in roadside
bushes. Biswas, 37, was found dead at Bora,
off Durgapur Expressway, close to the place
where Mamata Banerjee will address a rally
tomorrow. His driver Kanchan Das, 32, was
found at Dadpur, over 20 km away. Hooghly
police chief Supratim Sarkar said: “There is
no connection between the deaths and the
Singur situation.”
14 February: Mr Justice Jayanta Biswas
of Calcutta High Court today held that the
procedure adopted by the government for
land acquisition at Singherveri under Singur
police station for the Tata small car factory
was proper, valid and in accordance with law.
Mr Justice Biswas dismissed the writ petition
of Sri Padmasagar Export Company which
had challenged the acquisition of its land. The
firm had purchased a 4.28-acre plot at
Singherveri in 2004 for Rs 45 lakh. It had
constructed a factory and obtained clearance
from statutory bodies including the Pollution
Control Board. In spite of this, the petitioner
complained the collector of the land
acquisition department had acquired the
company’s land by issuing a notification on 21
July last year.
Calcutta High Court today quashed the
prohibitory order issued under Section 144
CrPC at Singur on 4 February and observed
that it was an abuse of power and an act of
executive highhandedness unreasonably
restricting the petitioners’ right guaranteed by
the Constitution. Mr Justice Dipankar Datta
passed this order on a writ petition moved by
Mr Kalyan Bandopadhyaya challenging this
prohibitory order promulgated by the Sub-
Divisional Magistrate, Chandernagore. The
court held that this abuse of power had been
prompted by extraneous considerations. It
was a pre-determined and pre-judged act.
Two members of the Krishi Jami Bachao
Committee protesting against the acquisition
of agricultural lands at Singur for the Tata
small car project had filed writ petitions in the
HC. They had questioned the validity of the
prohibitory order promulgated by the
magistrate. The court order stated that to
defuse the tension prevailing in the locality
and to prevent further loss of life and damage
to property prohibitory orders had been
promulgated in the area under Singur police
station five times from 30 November last year
up to 4 February this year.
16 February: Mamata Banerjee is
returning to Singur tomorrow with the
demand that work on the Tata project be
stopped and the “forcibly acquired” land
given back. “My demands remain the same,”
she said tonight. While the government has
said only around 30 acres out of the 997-odd
were acquired without the owners’ consent,
Mamata has been insisting that over 450
acres were forcibly taken away. Mamata will
address a rally near Kamarkundu station, 5
km from the Tata Motors plot and 50 km from
Calcutta. It would be the first Opposition rally
in Singur in over two months. Mamata was
17
stopped on her way on November 30 because
Section 144 was in force there. Trinamool
Congress MLAs vandalised the Assembly in
protest. The order was in force for 60 days
from November 30 and was extended twice
till the midnight of February 14.
The chief minister, the industries minister,
their departmental secretaries, the chief
secretary and the home secretary reviewed
the Singur situation today.
23 February: Within a fortnight of pulling
up the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government
for "abusing power" by imposing Section 144
in Singur, Calcutta High Court today posed
some tough legal questions to the state on
the process of land acquisition there. Acting
Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya asked the
government to file an affidavit within April 13
furnishing all the details justifying the legality
of the acquisition. The HC questionnaire
wants the state to clarify whether all the
owners of a land-holding in Singur have put
their signatures on the consent agreement
that the state has been flaunting all these
days. The acting chief justice asked state
advocate-general Balai Ray whether the state
government could acquire land for a single
project under two different sections of the
same Land Acquisition Act, 1894.
25 February: Trouble broke out at
Beraberi Purbapara in Singur today after
agitating farmers forced their way into the
fenced off plot belonging to Tata Motors in a
desperate bid to reoccupy land that the
government has “forcibly” acquired in a bid to
set up a car factory. Shortly after the attempt
to demolish the fence was thwarted by police,
farmers staged a sit-in nearby, prompting
adminis-tration to deploy additional police
forces and RAF in the area. Construction work
of the boundary wall of the plot was badly
affected. Singur Krishi Jomi Raksha
Committee (SKJRC) members alleged that
farmers were “dragged by the collar” and
“policemen passed lewd comments” at
women who participated in the agitation.
Police, however denied the charge. “No one
has been arrested. We are keeping a watch
on the situation,” Mr Kalyan Mukherjee,
SDPO, Chandernagore, said. Mr Becharam
Manna, convener, SKJRC, said that the
protest will continue till tomorrow. It was
learnt that social activist Miss Medha Pateker
will visit Singur on the same day. Trouble
began around 11.30 a.m. today, when more
than 2,000 farmers from Beraberi, including a
few hundred women, marched down to the
fenced off plot at Beraberi Purbapara and
tired to pull down the fence. They were
shouting slogans against the state
government and Tatas. Policemen, who were
guarding the fenced-off plot, intervened
immediately. After being resisted, farmers
entered into a scuffle with the police
triggering tension. It was alleged that Mr
Becharam Manna, convener, SKJRC, was
assaulted by cops. Farmers from Bajemelia,
Khaserveri, Gopalnagar, Singherveri, also
joined their counterparts from Beraberi
following rumours that the women were
assaulted by the police. Later, agitating
farmers burnt effigies of the chief minister
and CPI(M) central committee member Mr
Benoy Konar. In the afternoon, senior police
officers held a series of meeting with SKJRC
leaders and asked the farmers to call off the
protest.
2 March: Local people of Khaserveri in
Singur dug up a portion of the road leading to
Tata’s small car project area near Bajemelia
Ujjwal Sangha this afternoon. Farmers said
that they dug up the road to prevent police
from entering the fenced-off plot and to
disrupt supply of bricks and cement for
construction of boundary wall around the
project area.
9 March: Tata Motors finally got
possession of land for its small-car factory in
Singur on today. The state government today
signed an agreement with Tata Motors for the
controversial small-car factory at Singur,
leasing out 949.5 acres of land to the
company for 90 years. The deal, however,
still remain shrouded in secrecy, as the
principal secretary of the state industries
department, Mr Sabyasachi Sen, who was
one of the signatories, declined to divulge
details of the package of incentives being
offered to the automobile major on the
specious plea that the Assembly was in
session. Commerce and industries secretary
Sabyasachi Sen, WBIDC MD Debashis Shome
and Tata Motors 'R S Thakur inked the 90-
year lease deal after a day of high drama.
The final signature was put by Thakur on a
hospital bed. Finally, at 6 pm, Sabyasachi Sen
broke the news. The state officials first signed
the deal and then sent it to Thakur, who is
undergoing treatment at a city hospital. But
neither the state nor Tata Motors revealed
any details — such as the price of the land or
the annual lease rent rates. The official
excuse: the Assembly is in session. "My
minister (Nirupam Sen) will place the details
18
in the Assembly,"the commerce and
industries secretary said. The company has
already been carrying out landfilling at the
site based on the "permissive possession" it
had earlier got from the state. The factory will
be built on 645 acres, while 290 acres are for
the ancillary units. A further 14.5 acres have
been allocated to set up a power sub-station
and WBIDC plans to use 47 acres of vested
land for beefing up local infrastructure. The
land-use plan adds up to 996.5 acres, falling
a little short of the already acquired 997.11
acres. Tata Motors has decided to scale up its
investment by Rs 500 crore from the initial Rs
1,000 crore for the 2.5-lakh capacity main
plant, and an expected Rs 500 crore for the
ancillaries. According to sources, the deal
gives Tata Motors financial incentives that
would offset the tax incentives offered by
states such as Uttarakhand to the automobile
giant. Sources in the commerce and
industries department hinted that WBIDC
bought the entire land from the land and land
revenue department and leased it to Tata
Motors for the factory and signed a separate
lease deal for the ancillaries. The financial
part of the deal — still a secret — involves
sops that may help the Tatas keep the car's
price within limits despite paying central sales
tax that it could have avoided in Uttarakhand
or Jharkhand. WBIDC plans to balance this
burden with a deferred payment provision of
the total lease rent in 10 easy instalments.
The government proposes to set up a
panel — with representatives from the state,
WBIDC and Tata Motors — to ensure that the
land-use agreement is adhered to.
Two days after senior Trinamool Congress
MLA Sadhan Pandey spoke out in favour of
Tata Motor's small car factory in Singur, he
was suspended from the party for an
indefinite period. Soon after his suspension,
Pandey stepped on the gas, and took on
Trinamool chairperson Mamata Banerjee,
holding her responsible for the "absence of
democracy" in the party.
12 March: Haradhan Bag, a farmer of
Singur committed suicide on Sunday (11
March) night, who, according to his family
members, refused to part with his land for
the Tatas’ small car project. A day after his
suicide, the state government seemed unsure
about the victim’s share of land in the project
area. Bag’s family members and supporters of
the Krishi Jomi Raksha Committee (KJRC) had
claimed yesterday that the victim owned 55
cottah land in Beraberi and had refused to
hand it over to the state government for the
car project. However, the district
administration today said that they would
have to check records to discern whether Bag
had any land inside the project area. Mr
Vinod Kumar, the Hooghly district magistrate
said: “We know that his family and legal heirs
have land in the project area, but we have to
check whether Bag himself had any property
within it.” Director of industries, Mr MV Rao,
refused to comment on the issue. Meanwhile,
supporters of KJRC denied the district
administration’s claim, saying that Bag
himself owned a plot which was forcibly acqu-
ired by the government. “We have necessary
documents to prove that Bag owned land in
the project area,” claimed convener of the
committee.
13 March: Trinamool Congress legislators
staged a walkout after the Speaker refused to
allot more time during the Question Hour to
raise the issue of Haradhan Bag’s suicide at
Singur. Later in the lobby, Leader of
Opposition Mr Partha Chatterjee demanded
chief minister Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee
issue a statement in the Assembly on the
agreement between the state government
and Tata Motors. He maintained that the “
clandestine deal” between the state
government and Tata Motors had driven Bag
to take the extreme step. The Speaker today
threatened to adjourn the Assembly session
sine die if ministers did not change their habit
of skipping the House in future. The Speaker,
Mr HA Halim had to adjourn the House for
half an hour this afternoon since no minister
was present on the floor. The matter was
pointed out to the Speaker by the CLP leader
Dr Manas Bhunia.
The state government claims it’s helping
the dispossessed farmers buy land in the
Singur block itself or nearby. But the list of
such buyers prepared by the district registrar,
Hooghly, reveals the pathetic efforts being
made by the state government to sell the
story that farmers have parted with their
lands voluntarily. Prefacing the details of the
persons who have bought plots of land and
the mouzas where the land is located, the
district registrar noted that “the list is
illustrative and not exhaustive.” From
October, 2006 to 12 February such purchases
were made. But 10 of the plots were bought
on behalf of one marketing farm. Only two
plots were bought by two farmers measuring
59.16 decimal and 27.23 decimal. An official
of the state land and land reforms
19
department said the government had decided
to help the dispossessed farmers buy land if
they so wished as an alternative to the land
they had handed over for the small car
project.
Unfazed by the ongoing anti-land
acquisition movement in the state, chief
minister Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today
said that the government would now accel-
erate the pace of industrialisation in the state.
Speaking at the inauguration of the new
office of West Bengal Industrial Infra-
structure Development Corporation, Mr
Bhattacharjee said: “We took a long time to
convince people of the efficacy of our
industrial policy. Now we have achieved a
turnaround. In fact, it is not only a turn-
around. We have begun walking on the right
path and need to increase our pace to keep
up with the fast-changing world.” The chief
minister, while addressing the assembled
employees harped repeatedly on the need for
speeding up the process of industrialisation.
He claimed that with the inflow of capital in
the state, both foreign and from within the
country, the need of the hour was to
accelerate the pace.
16 March: Agitating farmers demolished
a portion of the boundary wall of the plot
where the Tata’s proposed small car project is
going to come up near Sanapara in Singur
this afternoon and set the watch tower inside
the area on fire. They also hurled crude
bombs in the fenced-off plot near Singherveri
and chased away labourers working in the
project. The farmers uprooted a portion of
the fence near Beraberi Purbapara and burnt
down a few wooden poles before being
chased away by police. Four vehicles were
also damaged near Kamarkundu railway
station. Security of the project area has been
heightened with more policemen being
deployed there to thwart possible attacks on
the fence. Farmers took out a rally near the
project site in the evening and warned the
government with dire consequences if
“forcibly” acquired land was not returned to
them. No one has been arrested in this
connection.
State industry minister Mr Nirupam Sen
today announced that Tata Motors would get
a Rs 200-crore loan at a rate of one per cent
interest from the West Bengal Industrial
Development Corporation for its small-car
plant. He said no money was being spent
from government exchequer but the WBIDC
would take a loan from the market to extend
this loan to the Tatas! The information was a
part of the disclosure on the incentive
package for Tata Motors made by Mr Sen in
the Assembly. He said the government had
offered incentives on land, a soft term loan
and refund of VAT for the first 10 years of a
90-year lease. “We have acquired 997.11
acres of land of which 645.47 acres, on a 90-
year lease, has been handed over to Tata
Motors for setting up a small-car unit. The
remaining 290 acres has been earmarked for
an ancillary unit or vendor park,’’ Mr Sen said.
“Out of the 645.47 acres, the state
government would take up-front payment for
only 290 acres. In addition, the Tatas would
have to pay a yearly rent at the rate of Rs
8,000 per acre for 290 acres.’’ The minister
explained Tata Motors will pay Rs 1 crore
annually by way of lease rent for the first five
years. Thereafter, for every five years, there
will be a 25 per cent hike in the lease rent for
the next 30 years. From the thirty-first year
to the sixtieth year, there will be a 30 per
cent hike in the lease rent every 10 years and
from the sixty-first year to the ninetieth year,
the Tatas will pay at an annual flat rate of Rs
20 crore. The comprehensive lease rent for
90 years will thus come to nearly Rs 850
crore, he said. The incentives had been
offered to counter concessions offered by
other states.
18 March: A portion of the boundary wall
of the Tata Motors’ small car project site at
Singur was damaged early today when
explosives planted inside hollow iron pipes
kept hidden in a drainage outlet went off.
Explosives secreted in six other drainage
outlets of the boundary wall near a Singur
Krishi Jomi Raksha Committee camp at
Gopalnagar Bospara were later detected. The
blast was triggered around 3:30 a.m. Officers
of the bomb squad of the state police rushed
to the spot and unearthed the high-intensity
charges which were believed to have been
planted to blow up the boundary wall. Police
are still not sure of the brain behind the act.
“We are probing the matter. Nothing can be
disclosed at this point of time,” Mr Anuj
Sharma, DIG (Burdwan range), said. No one
has been arrested in this connection. A senior
police officer said that policemen posted at
the project site had heard the sound of an
explosion coming from the Gopalnagar
Bospara-end of the boundary wall early
today. They reached the spot to find a portion
of the wall damaged. The blast was triggered
a few yards off a Singur Krishi Jomi Raksha
20
Committee camp. Senior officers were later
informed of the explosion and a search was
eventually mounted. Policemen found six iron
pipes packed with explosives in six different
drainage outlets of the boundary wall. The
objects were later defused.
19 March: CPI(M) said in People’s
Democr-acy, "There was no notification for
land acquis-ition in Nandigram. There was
only a notice issued by the Haldia
Development Authority announcing the
intention to acquire land in certain areas."
27 March: In a significant development,
the West Bengal government today admitted
that its advocate general made an "erroneous
submission" to the Calcutta High Court on the
compensation for farmers whose land was
acquired for the Tata Motors' car plant in
Singur. Retracting its earlier submission that
land had been acquired and awards passed
for compensation for the project under two
sections of the Land Acquisition Act of 1894,
the state government said in an affidavit that
all awards were passed under one section of
the act and there was no question as such of
violating any law. The affidavit sought to
clarify that the submission to the court on
February 23 that two awards were passed
under sections 11(1) and 11(2) of the act
were incorrect as the awards were passed
under only one provision-- section 11(1).
However, it said that though no award was
passed under section 11(2) of the act,
compensation had been paid in terms of an
agreement in writing under the said section.
The affidavit also said that the state's
advocate on record, Sitaram Samanta, had
"wrongly given instructions in respect of the
payment and consequently the AG regretted
to having made such a submission". The state
govern-ment had come in for severe criticism
by a division bench comprising then acting
Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharjee and
Justice K K Prasad on February 23, when the
advocate general said that compensation was
paid under two sections of the law to farmers.
The bench, observing that the acquisition
process seemed prima facie to be illegal, cited
a Supreme Court judgement in which the
apex court had ruled that two sections of the
same law could not be used at the same
time. The affidavit submitted by the
government to the Court on 27 March 2007
says that only 30% of the landowners of
Singur who own 287.5 acres of land had
given consent in writing (That means, around
65% who have even collected cheques still
against this forcible land acquisition).
29 March: Tata Motors managing director
Ravi Kant today stoutly defended the
company’s selection of Singur as the site for
its proposed small-car plant, emphasising that
it was based on sound business sense.“We
choose where we want to set up the plant
and nobody has the right to speak about the
location. It is entirely our choice,” Kant said.
“I personally visited twice all the six sites
shown by the Bengal government. I was part
of the decision-making process in which
Singur emerged as the clear choice based on
sound business sense,” he added. Kant also
defended the government’s stand on
providing incentives to the company. He said
various state governments are still making
offers. “Why should we consider the word
‘incentive’ bad? Industrialisation in Bengal
over the past has been very poor. If a
government is willing to rectify the situation
by providing incentives, there is nothing
wrong,” Kant said. “Bengal has missed out
earlier on auto industries…. When the present
government expressed keen interest in re-
industrialisation, we thought why not be the
first one to capture this opportunity?”
Leader of Opposition Partha Chatterjee
today served a privilege notice on chief
minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, accusing
him of misleading the Assembly on the Singur
land issue by supplying information that was
“conflicting and at variance with each other”.
2 April: The CPM is working on a
compensation package offering double the
market value of land to farmers and equity
participation in industrial units coming up on
their plots to silence the Opposition and make
takeovers more palatable. Land minister
Abdur Rezzak Mollah has submitted the new
set of proposals to state party secretary
Biman Bose. He has taken into account the
prospective value of land and suggested that
the landloser be awarded a part of that. Party
insiders said Bose tabled the proposal at the
central committee meeting that concluded in
Delhi today. Mollah, who was the first to
voice his concern about the land acquisition
drive last year, has proposed 60 per cent of
the market value of farmland as solatium. In
addition, they should get 40 per cent of the
land’s prospective market value after 30
years.
Tension ran high in Singur today after four
persons, who gave consent for acquisition of
land for the Tata Motors small car factory,
21
were assaulted allegedly by supporters of the
Singur Krishi Jomi Raksha Committee (SKJRC)
at Gopalnagar Madhyapara on Sunday night.
The victims-Dilip Ghosh, Nimai Karmakar,
Kashinath Ghosh and Mr Janmenjoy Ghosh-
were appointed by the West Bengal Industrial
Development Corporation (WBIDC) for the
security of the project site, police said.
25 April: The government today signed
an agreement with Tata Motors as a result of
which young men and women from displaced
families in Singur would get vocational
training. Commerce and industries minister
Nirupam Sen said 358 youths have been
selected. This includes 17 ITI-trained youths
who had qualified in the aptitude test
conducted by the company and are now
undergoing training in Jamshedpur. There
would be 122 others who cleared another test
conducted by the Tatas. This batch will
initially enroll for a four-month course at the
Ramakrishna Mission Shilpa-mandir, Belur
Math. The others will be trained at ITI
(Industrial Training Institute) Howrah, ITI
Hooghly and ATI (Administrative Training
Institute) Dasnagar. “The company will set up
a training institute in Singur for jobs in
automobile and ancillary industries,” Sen said
after the deal was signed. Over 2,500
candidates had registered at the WBIDC
camp office in Singur seeking vocational
training. Over 600 of them were women. The
training will be in two parts, a nine-month
course for freshers and a six- month
programme for those who have completed
the Ramakrishna Mission course. Successful
candidates will then be trained at the Tata
Motors plant.
2 May: The high court today said the
affidavit submitted by the government on the
Singur land acquisition process was
“incomplete.” The government now has to
furnish a fresh affidavit by June 5, giving
details on the disbursement of compensation
to landowners — such as the serial numbers
of cheques issued and their dates — and the
rule under which the payment was made. On
February 23, the court asked the government
to detail the modes of payment made to
those who sold their land for the Tata Motors
project, about 40 km from Calcutta. The
order followed a petition by Jaydeep
Mukherjee, a social worker, challenging the
legality of the process adopted by the state
while acquiring the land. The petitioner’s
lawyers said the government took over the
land under two different rules of the
acquisition act, which the law does not
permit. The advocate-general said the
government did not furnish the details
because it had challenged the maintainability
of the petitions.
20 May: Violence flared up in Singur as
well as Nandigram today, less than 24 hours
after a breakthrough that put Bengal’s
principal political opponents on course to a
peace meeting. In Singur, the confrontation
went a notch beyond the usual cat-and-
mouse game after a knife attack on police
during a Trinamool Congress-led attempt to
tear down a portion of the wall around the
Tata small-car project. Rubber bullets and
tear gas shells were fired, injuring some but
none grievously, according to officials. The
clashes, however, did emit enough smoke
and fire — and television footage — to rustle
up what Mamata Banerjee candidly described
as her “daily meal”. Mamata declared that
there would be no let-up in the agitation in
both Singur and Nandigram but took care to
point out that she stood by her commitment
to the all-party meeting scheduled for
Thursday.
CPM veteran Benoy Konar said, “She is a
carnivore who has been requested to eat
grass, which she will do only under compul-
sion,” referring to Mamata’s willingness to
attend the all-party meeting.
21 May: Singur protesters again tried to
damage the wall around the Tata Motors site
this afternoon and police had to lob tear gas
shells and threaten to fire to shoo them
away. Around 200 people who assembled in a
playground near Kamarkundu to protest
against yesterday’s police action apparently
turned “violent as it began to rain”. “Led by
Save Farmland Committee leader Becharam
Manna, they were marching through the
villages. But they took to the fields as it
started pouring and headed straight to the
wall at Bajemelia, where they clashed with
the police yesterday” said Priyabrata Bakshi,
the officer in charge of Singur police station.
The protesters hurled stones when around
1,500 police and paramilitary personnel, who
were there since yesterday, intercepted them.
Circle inspector, headquarters, Satyacharan
Dutta had to be admitted to the Chinsurah
Imambara Hospital with head injuries. “We
used tear gas to ward off the demonstrators,
but that proved insufficient as it was raining
hard and some of our men were injured in
the melee. Then we flashed our arms and
threatened to fire and the protesters fled,”
22
Bakshi said. Non-bailable warrants have been
issued against 61 people, including Manna,
Trinamool MLA Rabindranath Bhattacharya
and social activist Anuradha Talwar, for
yesterday’s attack. A woman constable was
assaulted and a policeman was hit with a
dagger by the Save Farmland supporters.
24 May: Genocide on her lips, Mamata
Banerjee burst out but not before spending 1
hour and 51 minutes in a rainbow row of
leaders rarely seen on the Bengal political
horizon. Neither Mamata nor the CPM sees it
as the end of the road after the Trinamool
Congress leader walked out of today’s all-
party meeting convened to bring the
homeless back to Nandigram.
25 May: The state Forward Bloc secretary
today admitted lack of homework before
yesterday’s all-party meeting and said he
would meet Mamata Banerjee soon to fix an
agenda for the next round of talks. “It’s true
that we had not done proper homework prior
to the peace talks,” said Ashok Ghosh, the
convener of the meeting from which Mamata
had walked out.
Prasanta Das chose death over compens-
ation. A 45-year-old farmer from Khaserveri
mouza in Singur, Prasanto Das, who had
refused to part with his land for the Tata
Motor small car factory, committed suicide by
hanging himself from the ceiling of a cowshed
at his residence early today. The family of the
deceased owns a little more than four bigha
land in the project area which was acquired
by the state government for the Tata Motor
project. The family had refused to receive
compensation cheques. Prasanto, a father of
two minor daughters, had hoped that Miss
Mamata Banerjee would raise the issue of
land acquisition in Singur at the all party meet
at Mahajati Sadan yesterday.
27 May: The by-election to two panch-
ayat seats at Singur passed off peacefully
with nearly 80 per cent polling being recorded
under the watchful eyes of policemen today.
No poll related untoward incident was
reported from other places of Hooghly. A
senior district official said that 75-80 percent
poll was recorded in by-election to 17
panchayat and two panchayat samit seats in
Hooghly today. The two seats at Singur-one,
under the Bora panchayat and the other at
Balarambati, fell vacant after CPI(M)
candidates who had emerged victorious in
last panchayat polls died. Both CPI(M) and
Trinamool Congress expressed satisfaction
with the polls. “The by-election is a prestige
fight,” said Mr Ranjit Mondal, a CPI(M) Singur
Zonal committee member. Mr Becharam
Manna, Trinamool leader, said that party
cadres successfully used the “land grab” issue
in the by-election.
31 May: For the first time in the country,
a project promoter has offered shares in the
company to owners of land to be acquired to
set up the factory. The Jindals, who will build
a steel plant in Bengal with a capacity of 3
million tonnes in the first phase, today offered
cash and stock to compensate 742 families
from whom they expect to buy land at
Salbani in West Midnapore district.
2 June: At a front meeting today to
discuss the peace process, Forward Bloc
leader Ashok Ghosh took everyone by
surprise, saying he wants the CPM to play a
bigger role. “I believe that proper homework
has to be done before the second round of
talks and the CPM should play a bigger role in
it. I’ve given up and Biman Bose will
henceforth co-ordinate the peace process. I
know what Mamata Banerjee wants and that
without her co-operation the talks cannot be
successful,’’
Speaking at the convention, “No to SEZ” -
organised by the All India People's
Convention on Nandigram, Narmada Bachao
Andolon leader Medha Patkar criticised the
Left Front government. "They are trying to
make the people poorer. They want to hand
over our land to foreigners." She said the
people of Singur preferred to commit suicide
rather than hand over their land to the
government for the Tata Motors project.
"Thus, they have marked their protest,"
Medha stated.
4 June: Jyoti Basu rang up Mamata
Banerjee in a surprise move today, inviting
her home to thrash out a solution to the
Nandigram-Singur standoff. She was at
Basu's residence within half an hour of the
call. There were clear indications that the
talks had borne fruit. "After talking to
Mamata, it seems to me there is a solution,"
the former CM said at a joint news
conference with the Trinamool leader after
the hour-long meeting, which ended at 7.50
pm. Housing minister Gautam Deb was also
present at the meet. Mamata was visibly
upbeat to have been able to put across her
viewpoint to Basu. "If Jyoti Basu listens
sympathetically to the plight of the farmers of
Singur, I will think my 25-day hunger strike
has been fruitful. I am not unreasonable, but
I want the people of Singur and Nandigram to
23
get justice," she said. The Basu-Mamata
meeting, however, went further than the May
24 all-party talks because Singur too was
discussed. Basu said he had heard Mamata
out on both Singur and Nandigram and liked
her attitude. "She is not against
industrialisation. She told me that about 300
farmers (in Singur) have not collected
cheques for the land acquired and that more
than 600 acres are not necessary to set up
the factory. If we have to return their plots,
we will have to talk to the government. We
will also have to talk to the Tatas to
reorganise. But, we must ensure the Tatas
don't go away."
In the first positive fall-out of the ice-
breaking meeting between CPI(M) veteran
Jyoti Basu and Trinamool Congress chief
Mamata Banerjee on Nandigram and Singur,
an all-party meeting was held today
successfully in trouble-torn Nandigram for the
first time since January. The all-party meeting
was held to resolve the issue of repairing
roads which were dug up by protesters
opposing the state government’s move to
acquire farm land for industries. The meeting,
convened by East Midnapore District Magis-
trate Anup Agarwal, was attended by all
political parties including those belonging to
Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh Committee (BUPC) a
grouping of opposition parties leading the
anti-land acquisition movement.
5 June: As Mamata Banerjee counts her
gains after yesterday’s meeting with Jyoti
Basu, she is also weighing her options for a
possible compromise on Singur. Trinamool
Congress sources said Mamata may be
inclined to accept alternative “farmland” for
landlosers in Singur.
Today, chief minister Buddhadeb Bhatta-
charjee, his Cabinet colleagues Nirupam Sen,
Abdur Rezzak Mollah and Gautam Deb and
Left Front chairman Biman Bose met Basu at
his Salt Lake residence to discuss ways to
arrive at an acceptable solution to the Singur
and Nandigram issues. Basu reportedly
advised them to be transparent and, if
necessary, make concessions to end the
months-long agitation. A prolonged unrest, he
warned, would ruin the state's investment
prospects. He updated them on his
discussions with Mamata. According to one
minister, the CM said he wanted to settle the
dispute "with an open mind". While shifting
the Tata factory site was ruled out because of
legal implications, one solution considered
was offering Singur farmers, who unwillingly
handed over their plots and did not collect
the cheques, alternative plots in adjacent
areas, a CPM source said. A list of plots
vested with the government in nearby areas
like Tarakeswar and Haripal was drawn up at
Writers' during the day. Also, the Hooghly
district magistrate and the Singur block land
records officer met the land reforms
commissioner during the day.
6 June: Mamata Banerjee has thrown a
fresh spanner in Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's
peace plans. The Trinamool Congress chief
refused today to accept alternative plots for
Singur farmers whose land had been forcibly
acquired for the Tata Motors' factory. The
government may make a few concessions,
but is not revealing all its cards yet. Another
round of talks with Mamata will be held to
explain the situation to her. The government
plans to distribute land available in Singur
and adjoining blocks, but outside the factory's
fenced-off area. It also plans to purchase land
under 'Chash O Basobaser Bhumi Daan
Prakalpa' to set up homestead-cum-kitchen
gardens and distribute the plots among
Singur's land-losers. Rs 1.9 crore has already
been made available to the Hooghly district
authorities under the scheme. But, a policy
decision will have to be made, under which
the land-losers will be given priority over the
local poor and landless farmers, for whom the
scheme is meant. Plots of up to 16 decimals
(chhatak) could be purchased and distributed
among the affected. In addition, some more
land - now being dealt with by the Land
Reforms Tribunal - could be available. Once
the problems with the plots are settled, these
could be distributed among land-losers and
farm labourers from Singur. Land available in
adjoining blocks is also being examined for
distribution among the land-losers. Besides,
according to estimates, altogether 165.447
acres of farmland vested with the
government are available for distribution
among affected farmers in the Singur block.
But of this, only 34.99 acres are available for
distribution - the rest is under possession. But
Mamata said the offers were not acceptable
to her. "An aunt can't replace the mother,"
she said, explaining why the offer for
alternative plots was not acceptable. "Why
should farmers suffer while the Tatas build
24
malls on their land?" she asked. According to
her, more than 600 acres were not necessary
to build the small-car factory and a part of
the land that had been acquired would be
used for real estate projects. "I have
explained all my demands to Basu," she said.
7 June: The state government has
admitted before Calcutta High Court that it
has not been able to reach an agreement
with farmers over the acquisition of around
300 acres of land in Singur. The government,
in an affidavit, has stated that till April 25,
2007, Rs 90.35 crore has been disbursed to
10,021 people for 671 acres. The state has so
far acquired 997.11 acres for the Tata small
car project. It had allotted a total of Rs
118.95 crore to pay the rayats (as
compensation) and Rs 0.58 crore for the
bargadars. The affidavit, however, does not
make it clear whether landowners yet to
accept the award are not satisfied with the
compensation or do not wish to part with
their land. It only mentions that of the 3,124
persons who opted for agreements under
Section 11(2) of the Land Acquisition Act,
only 2,414 have agreed to hand over their
287.52 acres and accept the compensation
fixed by the collector. The affidavit also says
that several applications have been filed
before the collector for referring the matter to
court. These applications are now being
processed. The compensation amount not
claimed will also be deposited to the relevant
court, the government has decided. The
government has also told the high court that
even before notification was actually issued to
acquire land for 'public purpose', the collector
received 1,010 objections in printed
proforma. Those who had submitted these
objections had made it clear that they would
resist any acquisition attempt. The state calls
this invalid in law but did offer the objectors
hearings between August 22 and 25, 2006.
However, due to ongoing violence in the
area, these people could not be personally
informed of the hearing dates.
The government claims that it did make
an attempt to inform the objectors. In spite of
this, nobody turned up for the hearings. After
the notification was issued, seven objections
were received. These were heard and
disposed of by him on August 29 and 31. Of
these seven, six have already accepted their
awards and received the compensation
amounts. The affidavit further says that of
the 997.11 acres, 645.67 acres were allotted
for Tata Motors. While 290 acres have been
reserved for ancillary industries, 14.33 acres
have been taken over by the SEB.
Land reforms minister Abdur Rezzak
Mollah today said plots acquired from
“unwilling” farmers in Singur could be
returned if such a decision was taken
“politically”. The Trinamool Congress chief
refused on Wednesday to accept alternative
plots for Singur farmers whose land had been
forcibly acquired for the Tata Motors' factory.
Mamata Banerjee, during her meeting with
Jyoti Basu on Monday, had demanded that
land of the “unwilling” farmers be returned.
Mollah had ruled out returning farmland
yesterday, citing a Supreme Court verdict. He
modified his stand today. “My department is
examining all options, including returning the
plots to the agitating farmers. Yesterday, I
just defined the legal position. Returning the
land is not being ruled out. Let the issue be
settled politically first. We will try and fit into
our legal framework whatever decision is
taken.”
8 June: The state government has admit-
ted before Calcutta High Court that it has not
been able to reach an agreement with
farmers over the acquisition of around 300
acres of land in Singur. The government, in
an affidavit, has stated that till April 25, 2007,
Rs 90.35 crore has been disbursed to 10,021
people for 671 acres. The state has so far
acquired 997.11 acres for the Tata small car
project. It had allotted a total of Rs 118.95
crore to pay the rayats (as compensation)
and Rs 0.58 crore for the bargadars. The
affidavit, however, does not make it clear
whether landowners yet to accept the award
are not satisfied with the compensation or do
not wish to part with their land. It only
mentions that of the 3,124 persons who
opted for agreements under Section 11(2) of
the Land Acquisition Act, only 2,414 have
agreed to hand over their 287.52 acres and
accept the compensation fixed by the
collector. The affidavit also says that several
25
applications have been filed before the
collector for referring the matter to court.
These applications are now being processed.
The compensation amount not claimed will
also be deposited to the relevant court, the
government has decided. The government
has also told the high court that even before
notification was actually issued to acquire
land for 'public purpose', the collector
received 1,010 objections in printed pro-
forma. Those who had submitted these
objections had made it clear that they would
resist any acquisition attempt. The state calls
this invalid in law but did offer the objectors
hearings between August 22 and 25, 2006.
However, due to ongoing violence in the
area, these people could not be personally
informed of the hearing dates. The
government claims that it did make an
attempt to inform the objectors. In spite of
this, nobody turned up for the hearings. After
the notification was issued, seven objections
were received. These were heard and
disposed of by him on August 29 and 31. Of
these seven, six have already accepted their
awards and received the compensation
amounts. The affidavit further says that of
the 997.11 acres, 645.67 acres were allotted
for Tata Motors. While 290 acres have been
reserved for ancillary industries, 14.33 acres
have been taken over by the SEB.
West Bengal's Left Front government is
working on a proposal to find a solution to
the stand-off over acquisition of land in
Singur for Tata Motors' car plant, veteran
CPI(M) leader Jyoti Basu said today. Basu
said Industry Minister Nirupam Sen was
working on the proposal. "Nirupam is listing
points. Legal aspects are also being looked
into. Let's see what happens," Basu said. To a
specific query, Basu admitted that there was
not much alternative land in Singur for
industries. "Alternative land is available
elsewhere but why should land-losers go
there?"
Trinamool Congress chairperson Mamata
Banerjee has sounded a positive note on the
peace moves in Singur, saying a solution
could be found if there was the required
political will. "It is a matter of political will and
political decision. There is no legal hurdle,"
Mamata told reporters today after a meeting
of Krishi Jami Raksha Committee (KJRC). CPM
patriarch Jyoti Basu, who invited Mamata
over to his house for talks on Monday (11
June), also sounded positive. "A solution is
definitely possible," he said. Tomorrow,
Trinamool supporters will block roads
throughout the state between 5 and 6 pm.
KJRC, too, will also start taking out rallies of
"hungry people from Singur and Nandigram"
in different metros. In the first phase, from
June 22 to July 18, people from these two
areas will be taken to Delhi, Chennai and
Thiruvananthapuram. "People will go to these
places carrying begging bowls," said a KJRC
source. In the second phase, Mumbai,
Bangalore, Jamshedpur and Agartala will be
covered.
9 June: Jyoti Basu had suggested that
“unwilling farmers’’ whose plots had been
taken for the Tata Motors project be provided
land either in the project area or outside. But
with Mamata ruling out the possibility of
accepting alternative land outside the project
site, Sen has a complicated job on hand. CPM
sources said Sen would have several options
to work on. One of them relates to the 290
acres reserved for ancillary units. The land is
apparently with the West Bengal Industrial
Development Corporation, which has been
examining proposals from 70 units. Another
50 acres of vested land are with the
government but are not part of the project
area. At today’s meeting, front allies didn’t
want to take responsibility for the Singur
talks, leaving it to Bose.
Trinamool supporters will block roads
throughout the state between 5 and 6 pm.
KJRC, too, will also start taking out rallies of
"hungry people from Singur and Nandigram"
in different metros. In the first phase, from
June 22 to July 18, people from these two
areas will be taken to Delhi, Chennai and
Thiruvanan-thapuram. "People will go to
these places carrying begging bowls" said a
KJRC source. In the second phase, Mumbai,
Bangalore, Jamshedpur and Agartala will be
covered.
CPM leader Benoy Konar, meanwhile,
criticised intellectuals who opposed the Indus-
trialisation drive of the state government.
Addressing a meeting at Chandernagore, he
said they held a partisan view. Intellectuals
had not raised their voices against killing of
policemen and abduction of innocent
villagers.
The Left Front meet today ratified the
decisions taken at yesterday's CPM's state
secretariat meeting. While it has been
decided that none of the 997 acres acquired
26
will be handed back to farmers, the
government is trying to work out a four-point
package to give them a better deal. Perhaps
the most significant step is a possible hike in
the compensation package to the farmers.
This, though, could cause some embarr-
assment to the government and allow
Mamata Banerjee, who has been spear-
heading the Singur movement, to claim
victory. Second, state industry minister
Nirupam Sen, given the task of finding a
solution to Singur, is likely to propose
rehabilitation for the farmers at alternative
sites which are better than the ones
discussed earlier. Third, the government will
try to ensure direct or indirect employment to
one member of each displaced family in the
Tata Motors project. And for the rest, the
government will provide them direct support.
Given that it is now up to the government to
work out a Singur formula, Front partners,
RSP and Forward Bloc, wanted to know why
Jyoti Basu should have held talks with
Mamata.
Trinamool relaunched its agitation on
Singur during the day with an hour-long road
blockade in different parts of the state,
demanding that land taken forcibly from
farmers for the Tata Motors factory be
returned. Traffic in the city was badly
affected.
10 June: Eager for an early solution to
the Singur land row, CPM Party patriarch Jyoti
Basu, who has donned the mantle of
peacemaker, claimed at a meeting in Baguiati
(Kolkata) today the package would be
unparalleled in the country.
The state government has told Jyoti Basu
that it would not be legally possible to return
land acquired for Tata Motors in Singur to
“unwilling farmers”. The decision was
conveyed to the CPM veteran by industries
minister Nirupam Sen on a day both the
government and Mamata Banerjee appeared
to be hardening their positions.
12 June: Mahindra and Mahindra is
planning to set up an automobile ancillaries
special economic zone (SEZ) in Bengal. A six-
member team from the company’s infra-
structure venture, Mahindra World City, today
went scouting for land for the proposed 500-
acre SEZ in Burdwan district.
13 June: Farmers, spearheading move-
ment to reoccupy plots acquired for the Tata
Motors’ proposed small car project at Singur,
tried to damage the boundary wall of the
project site three times today. The attempts
were thwarted by the policemen who lobbed
tear gas shells and resorted to lathi-charge to
disperse the mob comprising at least 500
farmers, including more than hundred
women. Farmers claimed that two local
youths- Ujjwal Das and Tapan Bag, sustained
burn injuries in the tear gas shelling and lathi-
charge. The police, however, brushed aside
the charges. Cops claimed that the attackers
were chased away when they started hurling
stone at policemen protecting the boundary
wall. The police, however, denied the charge
of teargasing. According to the police, a
group of farmers, armed with shovels tried to
damage the boundary wall from two different
places near Beraberi around 11 am during
heavy downpour in the area.
14 June: West Bengal Chief Minister Bud-
dhadeb Bhattacharjee today turned down the
Trinamool Congress' demand that the land of
the unwilling farmers at Singur, acquired for
the Tata Motors small car project, should be
returned but said an alternative proposal was
being worked out by the State government.
The government, however, is working on an
alternative package for farmers who wanted
their plots back, the chief minister reportedly
disclosed at the meeting. The alternative
package would be revealed to the core
committee, as well as to the Left Front, after
June 18 — the date scheduled for the hearing
of a case on Singur in Calcutta High Court.
The chief minister told the core committee
that Industry Minister Nirupam Sen also
informed CPI(M) veteran Jyoti Basu that it
was not possible to return the land acquired
for the Tata project, he said.
Villagers of Purushottampur in Burnpur
today prevented IISCO authorities from
taking possession of about 240 acres acquired
in 1989, demanding compensation to match
that of Singur.
17 June: The rumbles of Nandigram and
Singur were felt in Asansol today when
hundreds of villagers fought police from
behind women and children, trying to stop
takeover of plots acquired 18 years ago. The
sticks-and-stones battle at Purushottampur
was over 240 acres of non-farm land,
earmarked in 1989 for modernising the IISCO
Steel Plant (ISP). Unlike Nandigram, the
villagers are ready to give up the land but
post-Singur, want bigger compensation and a
job in the plant for each of the 350 families.
19 June: The West Bengal government
today announced an economic package for
rehabilitation of the people affected by the
27
Tata Motors' small car project in Singur but
rejected demands for return of land acquired
for it from farmers. The package comprises
training programmes for the affected persons
and their employment in the Tata project,
state Industries Minister Nirupam Sen told
reporters. The rehabilitation scheme include
provision of appropriate training, identification
of employ-ment opportunities through close
coordination with Tata Motors Limited in
various activities /trades and preparing a
socio-economic database of persons affected
by the project. Besides, it includes selection
of trainees by ensuring that one person from
each family whose livelihood may have been
affected by the project, be included. On
demands that the land acquired from
unwilling farmers be given back, Sen said,
"There is no chance of returning any acquired
land at Singur under any circumstance ... No
land can be returned to the farmers whether
they gave it willingly or unwillingly for the
Tata Motors project."
22 June: A day after students staged a
walk-out at the Ramrajatala ITI, their
batchmates at the Bandel ITI went on a class
boycott agitation today. The students
demanded an assurance that they will be
provided jobs once they complete their
course. The protests began after commerce
and industries minister Nirupam Sen report-
edly said the students need to score at least
90% to qualify for a job at Tata Motors. Tata
Motors sources, meanwhile, said the company
would absorb successful trainees it has
selected from Singur. “If they successfully
clear the training and related tests, they will
become eligible for employment,” a company
spokesperson said.
23 June: Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhatt-
acharjee said his government has demon-
strated enough patience on the Singur issue
and is keen to see an amicable solution. “The
Singur and Nandigram controversies have
already sent a wrong signal to investors. But
the government is determined not to let the
situation go out of hand,” the CM said.
26 June: Chief minister, Mr Buddhadeb
Bhattacharjee, today said the CBI should
complete the probe into the murder of Tapasi
Malik as early as possible and the main culprit
should be grilled without taking the political
allegiance into account. “I had earlier said
that the CBI was taking time to complete the
probe. So far one person was interrogated in
connection with the murder. The probe
should be completed as early as possible and
the main culprit behind the murder should be
grilled,” said the chief minister at Writers’
Buildings. Mr Bhattacharjee also said the
political allegiance of the culprit should not be
taken into account while conducting the
probe. “The political allegiance of the culprit
is not important. The culprit should be
identified and should get proper punishment.
When Tapasi was murder-ed in Singur, I had
ordered a CID inquiry but the Opposition
demanded a CBI inquiry and I agreed as the
priority was to identify the actual culprit,” the
chief minister said. Earlier, the CBI arrested
Debu Malik in connection with the murder of
Tapasi Malik in Singur about six months back.
Debu was produced in a Delhi Court
yesterday. He may be brought to Kolkata by
the CBI within a couple of days.
28 June: The ruling CPM today was left
red-faced after Singur party chief Suhrid
Dutta was charged with the murder of teen-
ager Tapasi Malik, whose charred body was
found at the Tata small car factory site in
December last year and became a major
trigger for anti-land acquisition protests.
Dutta’s arrest was the second after CBI took
over the case. The agency had earlier (24
June) picked up CPM activist Debu Malik and
put him to a narco-analysis. Dutta and Malik
will be produced in court tomorrow. CBI
officers smell a rat in the entire episode. “It’s
a sensitive issue. The investigation is on. It
appears that the girl was heavily assaulted. It
appears to be a part of a deeper conspiracy,”
special branch SP A K Sahay said. Today CBI
also grilled CPM district committee member
Dibakar Das and two others at the special
crime branch office at Salt Lake, but let them
go. CPM state secretariat member Benoy
Konar refused to see the case as a political
murder. “Why should a CPM activist rape or
murder someone when the party knows that
it may upset the industrialisation process in
Singur?” Konar asked.
30 June: The CPM today said a party
probe had shown that Singur leader Suhrid
Dutta did not have any role in Tapasi Malik’s
rape and murder. “We have conducted an
internal probe that has given us no reason to
believe that Suhrid could have been involved
in the crime,” CPM state secretariat member
Benoy Konar said after a meeting last night
with leaders from Hooghly district, under
which Singur falls. Konar, however, made it
clear that the party had nothing to do with
Debu Malik, the key accused in the Tapasi
28
Malik case. Both Debu and Suhrid have been
remanded in 14 days’ CBI custody.
2 July: The government is renewing
efforts to retrieve benami or ceiling-surplus
plots held by big landowners in the state in
the face of a growing demand for land to set
up industry. The West Bengal Estates
Acquisition Amendment Bill will be placed in
the Assembly on Wednesday to give legal
teeth to the drive. The amendment to the
West Bengal Estates Acquisition Act, 1953,
will extend by 10 years, under Section 44(2a)
of the act, the government’s powers to suo
motu revise records of land rights by another
10 years. The powers expire this November.
Sankar Das, a 45-year-old sharecropper
and the only earning member of a peasant
family at Dobandhi village close to the Tata
factory site, died on Sunday (1 July) night at
his home. His father Dulal and wife Anima
claimed Sankar had died of starvation, giving
the Opposition enough ammunition to blow
holes in the government’s claim that share-
croppers rendered jobless because of the land
acquisition are being engaged on a daily basis
at the factory site. "My husband was the sole
bread winner in our family. He had no job for
the past 14 months, making it difficult for us
to arrange two square meals a day. We came
to know that the government would offer us
work at the factory site but it didn’t. Worse,
we woke up one morning to find a boundary
wall restricting entry to the land my husband
used to till," Anima said. Gram pradhan
Prabhas Pal, however, rubbished the charge.
"There are enough daily jobs at the factory
site. Many labourers from Dobandhi come to
work there daily. The number of locals at
work is less than what is needed. We are thus
engaging labourers from outside. If someone
is willing to work, he can come and join. You
give me a name, we will engage him," Pal
said. He added that a total of 1,500 labourers
were engaged on Monday for excavation of
the neighbouring Julkhia canal and allied
sewer works in the area.
Trinamool Congress leader Mamata
Banerjee today sought Central intervention in
West Bengal, alleging there was something
"malafide" in the Tata Motors deal for the
Singur car unit. "What is the agreement
between the Tatas and the Left Front
government? Why is the deal so hush-hush?
The CM and the CPM are both involved," she
said while addressing a meeting on the
"atrocities" of the Left Front government.
Banerjee, who heads the committee, asked
why Tata Motors was getting power, water
and land "free of cost" from the state
government. The Central Forensic Science
Laboratory will conduct a polygraphy test on
CPM leader Suhrid Dutta, the brain behind
land acquisition in Singur for the Tata Motors’
small car factory, tomorrow in connection
with his alleged role in the Tapsi Malik murder
case. This decision was taken today when
Dutta, former CPM zonal committee
secretary, agreed for it. "His consent for the
polygraphy test was necessary as under the
existing law one cannot be forced to give
evidence against himself," said an official. CBI
had booked Dutta for ‘criminal conspiracy’ in
the case on the basis of information provided
to it by the other accused Debu Malik who
reportedly confessed to his crime and
specifically named the CPM leader as one of
the conspirators behind the killing of the
‘Save Land Committee’ activist Tapsi for her
opposition to the land acquisition.
3 July: Polygraph tests done on CPM
supporter Debu Malik, the prime accused and
approver of the Tapasi Malik murder case in
Singur, have started yielding results. Acting
on the findings, a three-member CBI team
reached out to Malik's elder sister Maya Das's
house at Bajemelia village and recovered the
shirt and the trouser Debu had put on the
day Tapasi was murdered. Debu had left the
clothes at his elder sister's house after the
murder. Their colour and texture matched
with what he had told the CBI. Not only that,
the CBI team verified with the West Bengal
Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC)
officials the names of the night guards on
duty at the factory site on December 18 when
Tapasi was murdered. They got these names
from Debu Malik during interrogation. CBI
officers will summon two of these night
guards for interrogation soon. They have
conveyed it to the Singur police and told
them to see that they don't leave the place
without intimating the police. In New Delhi
today, the CBI performed polygraph tests on
Suhrid Datta — CPM's former zonal secretary
— but refused to divulge the findings. Datta
will have to undergo the tests again on
Wednesday, CBI sources said. The agency
has confiscated the SIM card from the Nokia
cellphone set that Datta used till recently.
Datta is learnt to have made calls to Krishi
Jami Raksha Committee convener Becharam
29
Manna from that phone after the murder. The
rumour was doing the rounds in Singur till
Manna flatly denied it. "I didn't receive any
call from Suhrid Datta. I'm ready to face the
CBI. I have told this to Mamata Banerjee,
who is now in Delhi. It's all bunkum," Manna
said. Taken aback by the two other names of
CPM district secretariat members — Balaram
Sabuin and Sunil Sarkar, Hooghly CPM
secretary Benode Das on Tuesday hurriedly
called a district secretariat meeting in
Sreerampore to work out the combat
strategy. As a first step, Sabuin has been
asked not to open up before the media on the
Singur murder. CPM's Singur zonal committee
members have also been asked to launch a
door-to-door campaign against the
"conspiracy" to clear the confusion among
villagers.
4 July: Additional chief metropolitan
magistrate (Patiala House court in New Delhi)
Kamini Lao held that the polygraph tests on
former CPM Singur zonal secretary Suhrid
Datta were performed without Datta's
consent. Lao made his observation after
talking to Datta in-camera. The additional
chief metropolitan magistrate summoned CBI
officer Partha Sarathi Ghosh today. Ghosh
submitted that CBI had taken Datta's consent
in front of a remand magistrate. However, the
procedure says that the consent by the
accused has to be taken before a judicial
magistrate.
A delegation of the Singur panchayat
samiti, led by sabhapati Ranjit Mandal came
all the way to the WBIDC office in Kolkata to
discuss about the shifting of the temple and
the crematorium that has fallen within the
fenced off TATA car factory site. The trust
running the temple property — spread over
30 acres — within the project site threatened
to move court because the government
acquired the property without even com-
pensating it. The government had earlier
promised to pay the damages. Similar is the
problem with the crematorium. Villagers have
no access to it for the last 14 months since it
was fenced off for the small car project. A
team of WBIDC officials from Kolkata will visit
the Singur villages tomorrow to identify
alternative locations for the crematorium and
the temple.
Panchayat samiti office bearers have
decided to launch some projects under the
National Rural Employment Guarantee
Scheme in the Singur villages immediately,
especially after the starvation death in
Dobandhi village. "A total of 200
sharecroppers and daily wage-earners from
Dobandhi village have already enrolled
themselves under this scheme. Fifty-nine
people will be engaged in the first phase for
constructing roads, culverts or installing
tubewells in the villages," block development
officer (BDO) Prasenjit Chakraborty said.
5 July: Suhrid Baran Dutta, CPI(M)'s
zonal committee secretary from Singur,
arrested for the murder of a woman opposing
the acquisition of land for the Tata Motors'
car plant at Singur in West Bengal, today
refused in a Delhi Court to undergo a lie
detector test. "I do not wish to be subjected
to polygraph (or) lie detector test," Dutta told
Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate
Kamini Lau during in-chamber proceedings.
6 July: An apparent contradiction in
Singur consent figures provided by the chief
minister and the land minister gave the
Opposition ammunition to target the govern-
ment in the Assembly today. Buddhadeb
Bhattacharjee had said in a letter to Mamata
Banerjee that consent had been obtained for
as much as 954 acres out of the 997 to be
acquired for Tata Motors. But Abdur Rezzak
Mollah told the House today the government
had not got owners’ consent for the
acquisition of 326 acres. Saugata Roy fished
out a copy of Bhattacharjee’s letter and told
the land minister: “Your chief minister had
said that consent letters had been received
for the acquisition of 954 acres, meaning only
43 acres had not been given willingly. Today,
you are saying that the government didn’t get
consent for the purchase of 326 acres.” An
angry Mollah said: “I’m speaking the truth.
My records say… owners of 326 acres didn’t
accept compensation cheques…. Rs 119.52
crore has been paid and 10,072 cheques
issued.” “I don’t have the right to rectify the
chief minister. Please don’t ask for that,” he
added. Mollah ruled out returning the land in
Singur.
11 July: Sixteen-year-old Tapasi Malik
didn't commit suicide as the state police had
earlier claimed. CBI has no doubt that hers is
a case of premeditated murder. Those who
burnt the Singur anti-land acquisition activist
alive were goons on hire, brought from
outside. They again visited the spot, two days
after the December 18 murder, on a trekker
from the Singur railway station, CBI claims.
Its investigators reached the conclusion by
30
tallying signed statements of a host of
people, including local CPM heavyweights,
during interrogation. Local trekker operators
corroborated the claim. Local promoter
Sailendra Sahana had admitted during
interrogation he knew two of the four men
Debu Malik had described. Based on their
statements, CBI released sketches of four
persons. It also declared a Rs 1-lakh reward
for any information on the suspects. Datta's
refusal to take the lie-detector test has only
fuelled their apprehension. "We have got
sufficient leads to nail him. We will place
them all in Chandernagore court tomorrow
(12 July) when Datta is produced," said A K
Sahai, special crime branch superintendent,
CBI, Kolkata.
12 July: CBI has identified Suhrid Dutta,
CPM's Singur zonal committee secretary, as
the mastermind behind the murder of Tapasi
Malik. Dutta was produced at the Chander-
nagore court today where CBI claimed to
have gathered enough evidence to hold Dutta
"directly responsible" for the rape-murder.
Dutta's bail plea was rejected and he was
sent to 14-day judicial custody. CBI lawyer
Partha Tapaswi said there was enough
evidence to nail Dutta. "He was the main
planner. We have already released the
sketches of the four prime accused, who
committed the murder. As the case stands
now, Dutta cannot be released on bail,"
Tapaswi said. Dutta will appear before the
court again on July 26. After this sensational
declaration, it is unlikely that CBI will reveal
all their cards now. After interrogating nearly
40 people, mostly villagers, the detectives
had determined there were four prime
suspects - all outsiders - who actually
committed the murder. CBI hasn't yet
explained, though whether Dutta had only
planned the murder or hired the killers as
well. Sources said CBI is likely to interrogate
more people to shore up its claims. Chief
minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said in the
Assembly today that he would stick to his
earlier statement that the government had
got consent for 954 acres in Singur to set up
the Tata small-car plant. Although the
discussion was on the police budget,
Bhattacharjee — also the police minister —
chose to clear the air on Singur first following
a controversy generated by land reforms
minister Abdur Rezzak Mollah’s apparently
contradictory statistics. The chief minister had
mentioned 954 acres in a letter to Mamata
Banerjee on December 20 last year. But
Mollah recently told the House that the
government had not got consent for 326
acres, triggering an uproar from the Oppos-
ition benches. Replying to a query from
Trinamool Congress MLA Saugata Roy,
Bhattacharjee said: “Till there were 287 acres
left for which consent was to be sought, the
land reforms department was involved. After
that, the WBIDC (West Bengal Industrial
Development Corporation) took over.” The
chief minister said the WBIDC had set up
camps in Singur that made “thousands of
people” curious about the consent award.
“That led to further availability of consent.
Moreover, there were 34 acres of vested land.
All this added up to 954 acres. So, I stick to
my stand. The land reforms department is
also correct as per its records.” Bhattacharjee
warned the Opposition any agitation that
damages the wall around the Tata project
would not be tolerated. “Breaking a boundary
wall can’t be called a democratic agitation.
We won’t tolerate such a disruptive agitation.
If it is done, the government will take
necessary steps.”
13 July: Senior CPM leaders once again
trained their guns on the investigating agency
today. Emerging from a meeting of the party
state secretariat, CPM patriarch Jyoti Basu
said: “It is no secret that two central
agencies, CBI and RAW, are antagonistic
towards us." He wondered how CBI could
issue sketches of four people, describing
them as the main accused, without naming
them. “Datta will defend himself in court
which is considering the case." Asked why the
party leaders were protesting against the
investigating agency when the chief minister
had handed over the case to the CBI, Basu
said the chief minister had referred the case
to the agency as he is also in charge of the
home department. State CPM secretary
Biman Bose went a step further, accusing the
investigating agency of committing excesses.
“CBI is acting like a political party. It should
be more restrained," he said.
15 July: Around 200 supporters of Krishi
Jami Raksha Committee attacked a police
camp near the Tata Motors factory site in
Singur and chased away 10 policemen today.
KJRC convener Becharam Manna claimed that
police had provoked them. The area remained
tense for some time. Today evening, the
KJRC supporters took out a procession with
flaming torches in memory of Tapasi Malik,
who was allegedly raped and murdered last
December. Around 7.30 pm, the procession
31
started from Beraberi. It passed through
Khaserbheri, Gopalnagar and reached
Bajemelia's Bosepukur. On the way there was
a police camp. Ten policemen were posted at
the camp.
19 July: Police today fired teargas shells
at a group of villagers trying to pull down a
wall of Tata Motors' small car factory here.
Hooghly district police superintendent Rajeev
Mishra said the police fired 25 rounds of
teargas shells to disperse a 100-strong mob
of villagers trying to break the wall. "The
villagers tried to break the wall, when the
police intervened and were subjected to
heavy brick-batting," Mishra said. He said
there was no damage to the wall, but
villagers owing allegiance to Trinamool
Congress-led 'Krishijami Raksha Committee'
claimed that a portion of the wall was
damaged.
21 July: A local court (Chandannagar)
today rejected the bail plea of Debu Malik,
one of the main accused in the murder of
Tapasi Malik in Singur, and remanded to jud-
icial custody for another 14 days. Chandan-
nagore chief judicial magistrate Pradip
Bandyopadhyay rejected the bail prayer by
Malik's counsel Kishore Saha.
22 July: The Central Bureau of Invest-
igation (CBI), probing the Tapasi Malik rape
and murder case in Singur, today issued fresh
summons to nightguards Bhanu Hambir and
Monu Hambir, and Krishna Barik - a CPM
supporter who works with the temporary
canteen at the Tata Motors site. They have all
been asked to report to the CBI's Salt Lake
office tomorrow. The two nightguards were
interrogated on 20 July, a day before Debu
Malik, the prime accused in the Tapasi Malik
case, was produced in the Chandernagore
court. Now that Debu's lawyer has claimed
that his client was forced to make the
confession statement before the magistrate,
the agency is going a whole hog to collect
evidence to corroborate the charges brought
against Debu Malik and CPM's former Singur
zonal secretary Suhrid Datta. CBI lawyer
Partha Tapaswi had earlier said that the
murder was engineered by Datta.
10 August: The ambitious Rs 100,000 car
project of Tata Motors is running behind
schedule, but Tata Sons Chairman Ratan Tata
hopes that it would achieve top speed to
make up for lost time. "The project is getting
delayed," Tata told reporters today on the
sidelines of Tata Tea's 44th annual general
meeting here. Referring to the controversy
over land acquisition for the car project in
Singur, Tata said that the project would lift
farmers from a life of poverty. Those who
were propagating the cause of farmers should
do something for them. "This controversy is
politically motivated," Tata said. "I feel West
Bengal is the most industry-friendly state and
has an enlightened government and a
pragmatic chief minister," he said.
Trouble erupted again at the Tata Motor’s
small car project site in Singur today when a
group of Bhumi Uchched Pratirodh Committee
activists attacked and assaulted engineers
working on the project. About 10-12
engineers were on their way to the factory
site to oversee the ongoing work around 8.30
a.m. While 10-12 engineers had gone only a
few hundred metres from the lodge near
Natun Bridge in Gopalpur to oversee the work
some women BUPC members blocked the
road near Koleypara. When some of the
engineers got down from the vehicle to know
what the problem was, the women attacked
them and damaged their car.
11 August: A day after Tata Sons
Chairman Ratan Tata's statement that vested
interests were delaying the small car project
at Singur, Trinamool Congress said Tata was
speaking like a politician. "Tata is speaking
like a politician and his statements are like
that of a politburo member of CPI(M),"
Trinamool Congress General Secretary Partha
Chatterjee told reporters here. Chatterjee,
also the leader of opposition in the West
Bengal Assembly, alleged that Tata had
insulted those who had launched a
democratic movement against acquisition of
farmland for their project. Stating that land,
water and electricity were given to the Tatas
free of cost, the Trinamool Congress leader
also demanded to know the agreement
between the West Bengal government and
Tata Motors.
19 August: Five persons, including a
senior district police officer, were injured
when agitating farmers in Singur once again
clashed with the police while trying to inflict
damage on the boundary wall of the Tata
small car project site, this afternoon. Police
said more than 300 farmers, armed with
pickaxes, attacked the boundary wall of the
project site at five spots - Khaserveri,
Beraberi and Gopalnagar, Bosepukur, Shitala-
tala - around 12.30 p.m. today. The protes-
tors claimed that they had damaged a portion
of the boundary wall near Bosepukur.
32
Policemen resorted to tear gas shelling and
lathicharge to disperse the agitators. Locals
said that three farmers sustained burn
injuries from tear gas shells, while police
claimed that two policemen, including deputy
superintendent of police (headquarters), Mr
Pradip Biswas, were injured by stones hurled
at them. The clash continued for at least one-
and-a-half hours. The area remained tense
following the incident. Security of the project
site was tightened apprehending fresh attack,
police said. Mr Becharam Manna, convener,
SKJRC, said the attack on the wall would
continue till the government returned the
land. He alleged that a farmer from Bajemelia
Uttarpara, Mr Ramesh Koley, was critically
injured after a tear gas shell exploded on his
head. Mr Rajeev Mishra, SP, Hooghly, who
had rushed to the spot after being informed
of the incident, said that a total 150 tear gas
shells were fired to disperse the mob.
20 August: With the possibility of early
elections looming large, Trinamool Congress
leader Mamata Banerjee seems to be playing
her cards carefully, keeping equal distance
from Congress and NDA. If the UPA-Left ties
break and snap polls are held soon, Mamata
is ready to dump the NDA and join the
Congress-led alliance to fight the CPM in West
Bengal, it is believed. Banerjee, still officially
part of the Opposition NDA combine, arrived
here yesterday night but failed to show up at
the NDA meeting today morning. Her party
MP in Rajya Sabha, Dinesh Trivedi, also did
not turn up for the NDA meeting saying "they
were not aware of today’s meeting." While
Banerjee found excuses to miss today's NDA
meeting, her long chat with parliamentary
affairs minister P R Dasmunsi, Congress
leader from Bengal, in Parliament’s Central
Hall on Monday, was seen as a move to build
bridges with Congress.
21 August: A key member of the CBI
team investigating the sensitive Tapasi Malik
murder case, in which a Singur CPM leader is
allegedly involved, has been booked by the
agency for allegedly taking bribes to show
favours to accused and suspects in probes in
different cases. The accused, A K Sahay, who
is an SP posted at CBI’s special crime branch
(SCR), Kolkata, was under the agency’s radar
for quite some time due to his suspected role
in a number of cases being investigated
under him. “The CBI, which has also been
after its own corrupt men, treated this
complaint with the same seriousness as it
treats complaints against outsiders and
booked Sahay on Tuesday,” said a CBI official
posted in Kolkata.
22 August: Counsel Samaraditya Paul -
representing Tata Motors, tried to impress
upon Calcutta High Court today. Paul, while
rejecting charges of mala fide intentions
against the state government in handing over
land in Singur to Tata Motors, claimed that
acquisition for a company is actually for
public purpose. Dispelling allegations that the
state government had handed over land for
free, he told the court that his client would
shell out nearly Rs 1,000 crore to West
Bengal Industrial Development Corporation in
the next 90 years for lease of 645 acres
required for the mother plant. The remaining
land will be used to set up ancillary units.
According to the lease deed submitted by
Paul, Tata Motors will pay Rs 1 crore annually
for the first five years. For the next 10 years,
the annual rent will be Rs 5 crore. WBIDC will
receive Rs 20 crore every year for the next 30
years. In this manner, the total rent payment
for the first 45 years will be Rs 655 crore.
This was submitted before the division Bench
of Chief Justice S S Nijjar and Justice P C
Ghosh, hearing public interest litigations
against the Singur land deal. He told the
court that Tata Motors has already paid Rs 1
crore to WBIDC as the first year's rent.
According to the lease agreement, this
payment was to be made within 60 days of
the deed being drawn out. Paul pointed out
that the petitioners had not produced any
particulars to establish any mala fide intention
on the part of the state government. "The
allegations and material in the petitions do
not disclose any mala fide exercise of powers
by the state. The court has thereby not taken
cognisance of such allegations," he
submitted. Referring to submissions by
counsel Siddhartha Shankar Ray and others
appearing on behalf of petitioners, Paul
submitted that they had not made any
statements against Tata Motors. "There is
every presumption in favour of the
administration that power has been exercised
33
bona fide and in good faith. Tata Motors has
taken a lease for valuable consideration and
not received a gift as the uninformed
petitioners have alleged," Paul further
submitted.
27 August: Tata Motors today informed
the Calcutta High Court it will pay Rs 855.79
crore to West Bengal Industrial Development
Corporation (WBIDC) as rent over the 90
years of lease for its car plant at Singur, even
as a petition challenging land acquisition
claimed that the state had gone beyond its
jurisdiction to give land to the company.
Presenting the figures before a division bench
comprising Chief Justice S S Nijjar and Justice
P C Ghose, Tata Motors counsel S Pal
submitted that the company would on an
average pay Rs 9.5 crore per year to WBIDC.
During the hearing of a PIL challenging
acquisition of farmland at Singur, Pal claimed
that while the lease deed rentals provided a
cushion at the beginning, the rental was
stiffer in the later years. He said that WBIDC
had given 645.67 acres of land to Tata
Motors on a 90-year lease, on an annual
lease rental of Rs one crore per year for first
five years with an increase at the rate of 25
per cent after every five years till 30 years.
On expiry of 30 years, the lease rental would
be fixed at Rs five crore per year with an
increase at the rate of 30 per cent after every
10 years till the 60th year. On the expiry of
60 years, the lease rental would be fixed at
Rs 20 crore per year, which would remain
unchanged till the 90th year, Pal submitted.
Adding up, Tata Motors would have to pay Rs
855.79 crore to WBIDC for 90 years. After
completion of Pal's submission, barrister
Siddhartha Shankar Ray said as per land
manual of 1991, a screening committee was
to be set up for acquisition of land.
31 August: A clash between farmers and
police ensued at Sahanapara crossing off
Singur this morning after the former tried to
intercept a vehicle belonging to Tata Motors.
Policemen, apprehending an attack on
technicians travelling in the vehicle, resorted
to a lathicharge leaving six persons injured.
Eight persons including three women and
Singur Krishi Jomi Raksha Committee (SKJRC)
convener Mr Becharam Manna were arrested
in this connection. A senior district police
officer said that more than 100 farmers
including a few women had gathered at
Sahanapara crossing following rumours that
the managing director of Tata Motors, Mr
Ravi Kant, was coming to Singur to inspect
the company’s proposed small car project
site. The agitating farmers, armed with
brooms and sticks erected a road block at
Sahanapara crossing and started shouting
slogans against the state government and
Tata Motors’ chairman Mr Ratan Tata at
around 9.30 a.m. Later senior SKJRC leaders
including Mr Manna came to the spot and
allegedly “insisted” farmers to attack the
boundary wall of the project site. Sensing
trouble, a police contingent led by the officer
in charge of Singur police station Mr
Priyabrata Baxi, reached the spot and tried to
pacify the mob. Meanwhile, farmers spotted a
Tata Motors’ vehicle approaching them. They
tried to intercept the vehicle following
rumours that Mr Ravi Kant was travelling in
the car. Having failed to control the mob,
policemen allegedly resorted to lathicharge in
which six farmers including a woman was
injured, said a senior SKJRC member. Police
said that technicians of Tata Motors were
coming to Singur by the car which the
farmers tried to damage. Policemen later
escorted the vehicle to the project site.
Meanwhile, about 40 farmers led by local
Trinamool Congress MLA Mr Rabin
Bhattacharjee tried to force their way inside
the project site through Khaserveri area.
Apprehending an attack on the boundary wall
police chased away the farmers. Mr
Bhattacharjee was detained in connection
with the incident. In another development,
farmers blocked railway tracks at
Kamarkundu railway station in protest against
the arrest of Mr Manna throwing train
services in Howrah-Burdwan (chord) section
out of gear for more than two hours this
afternoon.
15 September: CPM leader Suhrid Baran
Dutta and party activist Debu Mallik, arrested
in connection with the murder of Tapasi Malik
in Singur, the site of the Tata Motors car
plant, were today chargesheeted by the CBI.
The chargesheet was submitted by CBI
investigation officer Parthasarathy Basu in the
court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate,
Pradip Badhopadhyay in Chandannagar.
Tata Motors will roll out 2.50 lakh units
from the small car project in 2008 and the
production is likely to touch 3.50 lakh in the
34
next few years, West Bengal Minister for
Commerce and Industry Nirupam Sen said
today. "I hope that next year, the first year of
its production, 2.50 lakh small cars will roll
out of the Tata Motors project here and the
figure will reach 3.50 lakh in the coming
years," Sen told a CPM rally in Singur. He said
many industrial units would come up on both
sides of the Durgapur Expressway, beside the
Singur project site, in the coming years.
Claiming that there was an overwhelming
response from farmers to hand over their
land for industry all over the state, Sen said
the state government has asked Tatas to
involve the local people in area development
programmes and the business group is
training 3,000 people. The minister claimed
that 70 per cent of Singur farmers gave their
land voluntarily for the Tata project, while
some land could not be acquired due to
litigation and the remaining refused to hand
over land "due to confusion".
17 September: Faced with stiff oppos-
ition against land acquisition for industry at
Singur and Nandigram, West Bengal Chief
Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today
sought the help of the Confederation of India
Industry (CII) in formulating a proper
acquisition and rehabilitation policy for land
losers. ''We need your help. CII should form a
committee to go into details on what should
be the government's policy for land
acquisition, the role of private investors and
the rehabilitation policy. ''If you give your
suggestions, our government will seriously
examine it,'' Bhattacharjee told captains of
Indian industry at an interactive session here.
"I just cannot roll back the Tata Project. I
need this project for West Bengal. The Tata
Motors' small car will roll out in the middle of
next year," he said. Bhattacharjee said that
90 per cent farmers supported the Tata
project and a small section of 'bargadars'
(share croppers) and small farmers were
opposing it. ''But we cannot ignore them", he
said. The Chief Minister said his government
had made mistakes at the political and
administrative level on land acquisition. ''The
opposition has successfully misled the people.
Therefore we have decided not to go on in
Nandigram,'' he said.
 Bajaj Auto feels the Tatas have got a very
good deal at Singur. "The incentive offered to
Tata Motors is quite lucrative," Bajaj Auto
vice-chairman Madhur Bajaj said on the
sidelines of CII's national council meeting
here today. However, he did not comment on
the proposed small car project of Tata
Motors.
Eleven women were raped in Singur and
17 sexually tortured in Nandigram on March
14, according to a survey conducted by
Sameekshak Samannaya, an NGO. Four
persons are still missing and have not been
accounted for. While releasing the report in
Kolkata on Monday, former state land reforms
commissioner Debabrata Bandyopadhyay said
the figures had been compiled after a door-
to-door survey at 2,754 out of 6,858 houses
in 13 mouzas worst-affected by the incidents
of March 14.
21 September: As reported by media
today, the CBI claimed that CPM leader in
West Bengal Suhrid Dutta, one of the accused
in the Tapsi Malik murder case, was involved
in infrastructure development work of the
Tata Motors' small car project at Singur for
"personal gains". "There is evidence to
indicate that the accused was involved in
infrastructure development work including
selection of contractors for personal gain,"
said the agency in its 17-page chargesheet
filed in the court of additional chief judicial
magistrate of Chandannagar in West Bengal.
22 September: The mysterious death of
a farmer near the Tata Motors factory
triggered fresh tension in Singur today.
Besides the Tapasi Malik rape-and-murder
case, this is the fourth such incident in Singur
since land acquisition started for the Tata car
factory. Thirty-seven-year-old Srikanta Shee
was found hanging from a guava tree near
his house at Gopalnagar of Singur. Police say
he committed suicide. Shee has been out of
work for a month because the farmland
where he worked has been acquired for the
Tata project. Srikanta's wife Aparna said, "We
were reduced to poverty. He used to graze
cattle and work as a farm labourer but after
acquisition of land both these occupations
were gone. He became depressed."
6 October: As media reported today, the
Governor, Mr Gopalkrishna Gandhi, has asked
the state government to look into a complaint
that policemen, guarding the disputed site of
the small car factory of Tata Motors in Singur,
fired tear gas shells, while tackling demon-
strators, at a farmer, Mr Ramesh Koley,
35
working in his fields, causing him to be
injured badly. Mr Koley wasn’t even
participating in the demonstration. The rights
organisation had lodged a complaint with the
Governor after the district police superin-
tendent allegedly refused to initiate a probe
into the police action. According to the
complaint, a 28-year-old farmer from
Bajemelia at Singur, Mr Ramesh Koley, was
working in his paddy field near the Singur car
project site around 3 p.m. on 19 August this
year when policemen resorted to tear gas
shelling to quell a mob trying to damage the
boundary wall of the proposed factory. One
of the tear gas shells landed on Mr Koley's
forehead. The farmer, who had not even
participated in the demonstration, sustained
critical injuries to his head after the tear gas
shell exploded. On 10 September, special
officer of the Governor's secretariat, Mr
Adhikari, sent a letter (Number: 3392-S) to
the secretary of the human rights body,
informing the latter that the matter has been
taken up with the state home department.
18 October: The recent Supreme Court
ban on acquisition of “good agricultural land”
has sent ripples through the far-flung villages
of Beraberi, Bajemelia and Khasherberi,
where large tracts of agricultural land have
been acquired to make way for the Tata small
car factory. The SC verdict, which stated that
governments should not acquire land for a
private company under the guise of public
purpose, came in handy for Krishi Jami
Raksha Committee (KJRC) that took out a
rally today at Beraberi Purbapara to whip up
sentiments against the state government.
Tata Motors officials have taken care to
assuage feelings by flagging off its initiative
to support the cause of primary and
secondary school education in Singur. Today,
the company provided desks, benches, chairs,
tables, cupboards and electrical fittings in
addition to educational and sports materials
to a primary school at Ruidaspara in Beraberi.
19 October: After a lull of a few months,
violence erupted outside the land acquired for
the Tata Motors' small car factory in Singur
today morning leaving at least 20 people,
including five women and four policemen,
injured. Members of the Krishi Jami Raksha
Committee, which is opposing land acquisition
for the factory, carried out an "unprovoked
attack" on policemen posted outside the
boundary wall. To push back the attackers,
the police resorted to lathicharge and lobbed
teargas shells. Three of the injured policemen
have been admitted to hospital. Hundreds of
villagers, armed with lathis, sickles, axes,
vegetable cleavers and water bottles filled
with petrol, assembled outside the factory’s
boundary at around 7 am. They first started
hurling abuses at the policemen and then
moved closer to the wall.
30 October: The programme to
"paralyse" normal life in West Bengal by the
Trinamool Congress stands as violence was
still continuing in Nandigram, party chief
Mamata Banerjee said today. She said it
would also be against "forcible" acquisition of
land at Singur and unnatural death of
computer graphics teacher Rizwanur Rehman.
SUCI has also called a 12-hour Bangla bandh
today.
1 November: Tata Motors will construct
a "right-turn flyover" in Singur, connecting
the small car plant site to the eastern flank of
Durgapur Expressway to prevent traffic
congestion when cars start rolling out next
year. The decision to build the flyover was
taken at a meeting convened by West Bengal
Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC)
today. The meeting, held at the WBIDC camp
located within the site premises, was
attended by Tata Motors general manager D
Sengupta, additional district magistrate
Liyakat Ali and panchayat samiti sabhapati
Ranjit Mondal. A decision was also taken to
dredge the Ghiakunti basin into which water
drains out from the Julphia canal. The
decision follows the flooding of neighbouring
villages and inundating the factory site during
this year’s rains.
25 November: More than 1,500 farmers,
including hundreds of women, took part in a
rally in Singur this afternoon to protest
against the forcible acquisition of their farm
land by the state government and the alleged
“mass killing” in Nandigram by the CPI(M)
cadres. The rally began from Kamarkundu
railway station and ended at Ratanpur
crossing off Durgapur Expressway near the
Singur car project site where local Trinamool
Congress MLA,Mr Rabindranath Bhattacharjee
and convener of the Singur Krishi Jomi
Raksha Committee (SKJRC), Mr Becharam
Manna, addressed the gathering. Farmers
who took part in the rally demanded that
plots “taken away by the state government
from the farmers at gunpoint” be returned to
them immediately.
26 November: A month after completion
of hearing, the Singur land acquisition case
was today reopened before the Calcutta High
36
Court following the apex court's ruling that no
government had the right to acquire
agricultural land on the plea that private
industry would be set up in public interest.
The hearing commenced before a division
bench comprising Chief Justice S S Nijjar and
Justice Pinkai Chandra Ghosh. The case was
reopened after the petitioners' lawyer
Siddhartha Shankar Ray was allowed to
submit a fresh application to the court on
November 22. In his submission at the
hearing, Ray cited the ruling of the Supreme
Court on September 12. Advocate General
Balai Ray said the land in Singur was acquired
by the West Bengal Industrial Development
Corporation for industrialisation to create
employment opportunities and boost the
economy of the area. While noting the
Supreme Court judgement cited by S S Ray,
the division bench said that it would study the
apex court order.
The bail applications of former CPI(M)
Singur Zonal committee secretary Suhrid
Dutta and Debu Mallik arrested by the CBI for
their role in the murder of 18-year old Tapasi
Malik were rejected by a court here today.
Hooghly District Judge Yudhisthir Haldar
rejected the bail prayers of Dutta and Debu
Malik and transferred the case to the
Chandennagore First Track First court. The
Chandennagore First Track First Court will
hear the matter on November 30.
30 November: Charges against the
accused in the Tapasi Malik murder case --
CPI(M) Hooghly district committee member,
Suhrid Dutta and his associate Debu Malik --
will be framed in the first fast track court in
Chandernagore on 7 December. Additional
district and session judge of the Chander-
nagore first fast track court, Mr.
Amar Kanti Acharya passed a direction in this
regard today turning down the petition of
defence counsel who sought a 15-day stay
order against direction of the Hooghly district
and session judge, Mr Judhisthir Haldar, who
sent the Tapasi Malik murder case to the
Chandernagore court for trial on 26
November. Advocate of Dutta, Mr
Sandip Dutta, moved a separate petition
seeking that the process of framing of
charges be adjourned for 15 days. Mr
Dutta told the court that he moved the
adjournment petition because his senior, Mr
Arindam Mukherjee, who is defending the
murder accused CPI(M) leader, was absent in
the court today.
 7 December: A local court today framed
charges against former CPM Singur zonal
committee secretary Suhrid Dutta and co-
accused Debu Malik in the murder case of 18-
year-old Tapasi Malik. Fast track court
magistrate A Acharya, who rejected their bail
pleas, questioned Dutta whether he pleaded
guilty. Dutta said he did not. The magistrate
fixed January 28 to begin the trial, during
which 64 witnesses would be examined in 20
working days. Earlier, opposing Dutta's bail,
CBI counsel Partha Tapasyii told the court
that Dutta and Malik had not been given bail
by the Calcutta High Court and should not be
granted bail from this court as their release
might hamper probe. The CBI had presented
a well documented CD to the court which
demonstrated their involvement in the case,
Tapasyii said. Dutta's counsel, Keshab Lal
Mukherjee and Arindam Bhattacharjee prayed
for bail.
13 December: The state’s Tata connec-
tion is getting stronger. Today, Telco Cons-
truction Equipment Company Ltd (Telcon)
was allotted 250 acres in Kharagpur on a 99-
year lease to set up a Rs 600-crore heavy
earthmoving equipment facility. Telcon is a
joint venture between Tata Motors and
Hitachi. "On Thurs-day, we met 35
component makers interested in setting up
shop at the vendor park near the Tata Motors
plant in Singur," State commerce and
industries minister Nirupam Sen said. "Their
combined investment in Singur will be Rs
2,200 crore in the first phase. They will
employ 2,750 people initially, which will go up
to 4,000."
17 December: A day after chief minister
Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee talked about the
wonder that Singur would be, an unemployed
farm worker killed himself at Singur's
Khaserbheri Shibtala today. Shankar Patra
(48) was found hanging in the cattle shed
behind his mud house around 2 pm. Son
Pratap said Shankar had taken to working in
other people's farms after his tea-shop was
burgled. But the state took over the land,
where he regularly found work, for the Tata
factory. Shankar then joined the anti-land
acquisition movement. Though many farm
hands got work at the factory site, Shankar
did not. Shankar was jobless for weeks and
depressed, said Pratap. "We have nowhere to
go. Since we went against the government's
plans, no one cares for us," said widow Asha.
37
25 December: Senior Congress leader
Pranab Mukherjee today came out in support
of acquisition of land for industrial
development and made a veiled criticism of
Trinamool Congress which has been leading
an anti farmland acquisition movement in
West Bengal.
2008
1 January: The much-awaited "people's
car" will roll out of the Singur factory on time,
the state government said today at the
Writers' Buildings in presence of chief minister
Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and commerce and
industries minister Nirupam Sen. The
government decided to implement a Rs 170-
crore irrigation project which would
channelise the accumulated water through
the Ghia and Kunti rivers near Singur. The
commerce minister said, "This irrigation
project is not just for the Tata unit — it's for
the low-lying region around it. It's a master
scheme for the entire region." The irrigation
department is working round the clock to
implement the Centre's 30-year-old Ghia-
Kunti scheme. The state government may ask
the Tatas to pitch in. MP Rupchand Pal, who
also attended the meeting, said, "The cars
will roll out in the middle of 2008 as
scheduled. There is no problem now,
residents are cooperating because they, too,
are getting jobs."
3 January: The assembly and roll-out of
Tata Motors' small car would be from the
Singur plant in the state and not from Pune
or Uttarakhand as speculated, a west Bengal
government official claimed today. "It would
be silly if the company rolled out the small car
from a different plant," the official said.
However, a Tata Motors' official, when asked
on the company's decision on location of the
roll-out of the low-cost car, said: "We expect
to start commercial production in the middle
of next financial year as stated in earlier
occasions." The WBIDC official said that
although the company planned to showcase
the car at the upcoming Auto Expo at New
Delhi this month, it would be a prototype
from the Pune plant. The mother plant would
require 640 acre and the vendor park 290
acre. Already, nearly 55 vendors have agreed
to come to Singur, with a promised
investment of Rs 2,200 crore. This was in
addition to the Rs 1500-crore investment to
be made by Tata Motors at the plant.
Socialism for the world and capitalism for
West Bengal — this is how chief minister
Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has charted out his
development path, given the constraints of a
state government. Taking a U-turn from the
Left demand for nationalisation of industries
in the '60s, he made out a strong case for
capitalist industrialisation at the 42nd
anniversary of the CPM's Bengali mouthpiece,
'Ganashakti', today. "Some people say
industrialisation is fine. But will that be a
socialist mode? For them, I would like to say
that industrialisation in West Bengal has to
follow the capitalist course. I am aware of the
sweat and tears that capital brings with it, but
there is no way out. Where from shall we get
the money? Our government doesn't have
funds," he said, clearing pointing to the sea
change in the CPM's mindset till the '80s
when bourgeois was a dirty word. He wants
Left Front partners to appreciate the
changing times and take a pragmatic stand
on agriculture and industry. "The Jindals have
taken land from a total 137 families. They've
no problems absorbing them when they are
going to generate 18,000 jobs. But the same
can't be expected from the Tatas. We
acquired land for their small-car factory in
Singur from a total 12,000 families. Is it
feasible to engage all of them? The Tatas,
however, have introduced a training
programme and will absorb some from the
land-losers." Coming to terms with the
changing times, the CM clipped his Leftism
from offering a radical alternative to existing
social order and said the Left goal now is give
a human face to the market-driven path.
6 January: FB state secretary Ashok
Ghose's said today that the Tata project
should be shifted from the present location.
At a public meeting in Singur today the FB
leader had said that the land at Singur was
fertile and no industrial plant would be
allowed there.
That party adventurism in Nandigram and
land grab in Singur hit the CPI(M)’s support
base in Hooghly hard became evident with
the party losing control of managing
committees of four schools, including one
located in Singur, today. According to reports,
all six CPI(M)-backed candidates, who
contested the election of the managing
committee of Basubati Bijonbihari Girls’
School in Singur, have been defeated by their
counter-parts in the Trinamool Congress. In
2005, the CPI(M) had won all these six seats
unopposed. Local residents claimed that “land
acquisition at gunpoint” and “Nandi-
gram massacre” resulted in the defeat of
38
CPI(M) candidates. In Polba, around 20
kilometre from Singur, the CPI(M) lost six
seats in the managing committee election of
Fom-dhara High School, yesterday. Candid-
ates backed by the Trina-mul Congress and
the Forward Bloc defeated their counterparts
in the CPI(M) for the first time in the school's
history. The CPI(M) suffered a major setback
after all its six candidates lost the election to
the managing committee of Bansberia Boys’
School yesterday. All the six Trinamool
Congress-backed candidates emerged victor-
ious as three-fourth of the total voters, who
are parents of school students, voted against
the CPI(M).
7 January: The CPI, a partner of the
ruling Left Front today distanced itself from
constituent Forward Bloc's stand that the Tata
Motors small car project at Singur should be
relocated to Kalaikunda in West Midnapore
district. "We don't think there is any scope for
re-opening the Singur issue at this stage
when the plant is nearing completion," CPI
state council secretary Manju Kumar
Majumder told reporters.
10 January: The West Bengal govern-
ment (state Industry Minister Nirupam Sen)
today expressed happiness over Tata Motors
unveiling its much-awaited people's car
'Nano', and said the Singur project, where it
would be manufactured, will be completed in
time.
Today Ratan Tata unveiled the Nano in
Delhi's Pragati Maidan. And hundreds of
kilometres away in Kolkata, a visibly elated
West Bengal industries minister Nirupam Sen
said Nano was a pride for the state. "Many
people had doubts about the car. The car, as
promised, is priced at Rs 1 lakh, and it's a
matter of pride that it'll roll out from Singur."
But, amid the huge mass of mediapersons
and other people gathered inside Hall No. 11
for a first look at Tata's Nano car, a group of
six women, activists of Delhi Soliderity Group,
a forum of left-leaning individuals and
organizations, dressed in white T-shirts stood
out. Written in bold red on their T-shirts were
provocative blurbs like "The Rs 1 lakh car has
Singur people's blood on it" and other such
slogans. Standing in a single line, the women
were talking animatedly to curious journalists
and distributing leaflets. The group claimed
that the lands of many farmers at Singur
were forcibly taken away by the West Bengal
government which used CPM cadre for the
purpose. At a press conference later in the
day, six farmers from Singur claimed they had
not taken the compensation being offered for
their farmland. The press conference was
addressed by Medha Patkar, among others.
The protesters also questioned Tata's claim
that they would provide employment to locals
at the plant, saying only 12 people had been
given jobs so far and that too as security
guards. "Tatas are training some local youths
at ITIs, but they have given no assurances on
whether they would be absorbed."
11 January: The fracas over retrench-
ment of security guards started yesterday -
when Ratan Tata was unveiling the Nano -
and spilled on to today, with local CPM
activists barging into the walled-off factory
site and stopping engineers, mechanics and
contractors from doing their work. The
embarrassed CPM top brass distanced itself
from the agitation but local leaders felt the
agitation was "justified". It was in December
last year that West Bengal Industrial
Development Corporation (WBIDC) had
decided to cut down the number of night
guards at the factory site, but for some
strange reason it waited for the day of the
unveiling of the Nano to inform the 131
retrenched workers. Protests broke out,
leading to chaos all through yesterday.
Today, the sacked guards led by flag-
flaunting Citu men stormed into the factory
site around 8 am. It wasn't long before the
CPM top brass came to know of it. Party
leaders at the Alimuddin Street headquarters
frantically called up the Hooghly CPM office at
Serampore to stop the agitation.
13 January: The state government will
take full responsibility of farmers and their
families who give away land for industrial
projects, chief minister Buddhadeb Bhatta-
charjee told a massive gathering of CPM
workers on Brigade Parade Ground in Kolkata
today. The state remains committed to
industrialization, Bhattacharjee said, but in
balance with agriculture. The message to the
Opposition and dissenting Left Front partners:
"there will be no looking back". "If land has
been taken away from farmers, then it is the
government's responsibility to ensure that the
family gets a new source of income and
livelihood. The government cannot shy away
from this responsibility. We don't need to be
told by Congress or Trinamool Congress
about what needs to be done for the
farmers," he said at the open session of
CPM's state conference. Bhattacharjee, who
had once said "money has no colour", said
they were not concerned about the name of
39
the business group or country coming for
investment — what mattered was jobs. "It
can come from the Tatas, Jindals, American
or Chinese companies, that is not the issue.
We want to see how many people will get
jobs once these industries come up. That is
the only criteria," he said. "We are not
bothered who will buy the car manu-factured
at Singur. What is important is that 6,000
people will get work there.
18 January: In a major boost to the Bud-
dhadeb Bhattacharjee government, Calcutta
High Court today put its seal on the state's
land acquisition in Singur, paving way for
Tata Motors' Nano to roll out from there. A
division bench comprising Chief Justice S S
Nijjar and Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghosh
dismissed all the 11 petitions against land
acquisition in Singur. The bench observed
there was no malafide intention on the part of
the state in acquiring land there. "There was
no colourable exercise of power by the
government during acquisition of the land.
Landowners who are not satisfied with the
compensation amount may move the land
acquisition collector." Today's judgment has
been on hold since August 30 last year. In
Singur, compensation has been paid by the
West Bengal Industrial Development Corpor-
ation (WBIDC), a state body. Some petitio-
ners had relied on a recent Supreme Court
order in which it had quashed a bid by a
private company and the government of
Punjab to acquire agricultural land for a
tractor company.
Business associations today said the
Calcutta High Court judgment on Singur will
restore investors' faith in Brand Bengal and
open the floodgates for a greater inflow of
capital. "The state's image will receive a
boost and companies will no longer feel jittery
about setting up shop in the state," Assocham
president and Videocon chairman Venugopal
Dhoot said. Dhoot has been one of the
biggest champions of the state's industrial
potential in the recent past. "The HC
judgment will restore credibility in the state's
industrialization drive," CII eastern region
chairman and JSW Bengal Steel joint MD
Biswadip Gupta said.
8 February: Over 500 farmers today
blocked the Durgapur Expressway near
Singur demanding the return of agricultural
land that they alleged has been forcibly
acquired from them for the Tata small car
project. According to the police, the farmers
and the Trinamool Congress activists blocked
the highway near Haterchawk-Beltola area
leading hundreds of vehicles getting
stranded.
The body structure of the new Rs one lakh
Tata Nano car will be built by NRI industrialist
Lord Swraj Paul-owned Caparo Group.
Selected inner structural panels will be
pressed and assembled by Caparo at a new
facility in Singur, adjacent to the Tata Nano
manufacturing plant in West Bengal. Caparo,
the manufacturer of the world's highest
performance road-capable hyper car, the
Caparo T1, will supply 60% of these
assemblies, with the rest being manufactured
in-house by Tata. To meet Tata's ambitious
cost targets, Caparo has installed a new semi-
automated production line with zero fault
forward quality control systems. "The body
technology is relatively conventional, but the
manufacturing technology is the result of very
sophisticated analysis to ensure high-quality,
low-cost production," Caparo Group CEO
Angad Paul said today.
10 February: A man rendered jobless
after the 1.5 acres he used to share with
others was acquired for the Tata Motors plant
here died today, allegedly of malnutrition.
Kalipada Majhi, 45, of Beraberi Purbapara,
about 100m from the project site, did not
respond when his wife Kalpana called him at
7am today. “I was told that Kalipada was a
sharecropper and had been ailing. He was left
with no land to till after the acquisition for the
Tata project. Only a probe will reveal whether
he died of malnutrition,” said Chandernagore
subdivisional officer Shekhar Roy, who has
ordered an inquiry.
25 February: Angry farmers thrashed
West Bengal Industrial Development Corpor-
ation (WBIDC) surveyors today for being
denied the price of land they had given to the
latter. Block development officer Prasenjit
Chakrabarty and Singur panchayat samiti
sabhapati Ranjit Mandal were also heckled by
the mob. Tension was brewing in the villages
since the original road to Bablabandh from
Khasherbheri village was cut off after Tata
Motors fenced off the site for the small car
factory. In the meantime, farmers gave away
seven acres to WBIDC to revamp the sewer
network in the area. Even a local
crematorium was fenced off. WBIDC officers
promised an alternative plot for setting up the
crematorium. But that is yet to happen.
Today, when officials and surveyors reached
the spot to carve out the road, Khasherbheri
villagers flocked near the Ujjal Sangha Club.
40
They asked the officers what they were doing
all this while. Trouble broke out around 1 pm
when villagers stopped the two cars returning
from the site and searched for the officers.
They dragged out surveyor Gautam Do and
driver Asok Das and started beating them up.
When Chakrabarty tried to intervene, the mob
pushed him back into the car. On hearing the
news, Singur police station officer-in-charge
Priyabrata Bakshi came to the spot but fled
only to return with a huge force. SDPO
Kalyan Mukherjee finally rescued the officers.
CPM-backed Pragatishil Shechchhaye Shilpos-
thapan Samity convener Dibakar Das cond-
emned the attack on government officers. But
he conceded that the villagers also had
genuine grievances. "WBIDC officers have not
kept the promise they made while taking land
from the farmers for the sewerage system,"
he said.
29 February: As media reported today,
the West Bengal government has told the
Supreme Court that the Singur venture would
lead to rapid industrialisation of the state.
“The state government thinks that the
implementation of the project at Singur will
play a pivotal role with regard to devel-
opments in the field of modern industry in all
respects not only in Singur, but also
throughout the state of West Bengal,” the
Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government said.
The state was responding to the apex court’s
notice to it on a petition filed by the
Karnataka Landless Farmers Association,
which was complaining against the states’
recent policy to increasingly target agri-
cultural land for setting up industries and
SEZs. The West Bengal government refuted
allegations that 645.67 acres of land had
been leased out to Tatas at throwaway prices
and said: “The government has the power to
form any policy and/or to exempt from paying
various claims for the sake of greater interest
of the state.” The association had alleged that
soon 43,000 more acres of land would be
acquired for two dozen companies of an
available 2.25 lakh arable and arid land.
Rejecting this, the state said: “Though a few
thousand acres of lands are under
examination for setting up industrial units in
different districts of the state, out of which a
major portion of land is not fit for cultivation
or not at all fertile.”
2 March: Criticising the chief minister for
awarding the Seva medal to an IPS officer,
accused of torturing women and farmers in
Singur, a section of intellectuals and human
right activists have decided to meet Governor
Gopalkrishna Gandhi to complain about Mr
Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. Mr. Bhattacharjee
recently awarded the Seva medal to
IPS officer, Mr Asit Paul, former additional
superintendent of (Headquarters), Hoog-
hly, who has been accused of assaulting
women farmers and Ms Anuradha Talwar, a
human rights activist near the Singur small
car project site last year for protesting against
the land acquisition.
3 March: As media reported today, the
marginal farmers of Bajemelia and
Khaserbheri villages in Singur — many of
whom had earlier protested against the land
acquisition for the car factory — have finally
started collecting their compensation cheques
from the Chinsurah collectorate office.
According to district administration, the
valuation for the 997.11 acres of Singur land
stands approximately at Rs 110 crore.
Individual landowners have so far collected
Rs 95 crore for giving up their land. The
government is yet to issue 2,000 cheques to
individual land-losers. CPM MP Anil Basu said
the farmers could have accepted their
cheques earlier had they not been prevented
by a section of local people. “People should
understand the importance of development in
this region,” he said. The convener of the
Krishi Jami Raksha Committee, Becharam
Manna, said his organization has not
prevented anybody who wanted to collect the
compensation cheques. “But if the govern-
ment forces farmers to accept the cheques,
we will keep preventing them from following
the government diktat,” he said.
8 March: Fresh trouble is brewing in
Singur. And this time, the aggrieved are those
from the CPM who helped the government
hasten the small car project despite all odds.
They include the homeless people awaiting
rehabilitation and a host of local security
guards, those who helped surveyors,
suppliers, truck operators and people whose
bills are pending with the government for
months. They feel let down now. The Singur
CPM has taken up their case and submitted a
memorandum to CPM MP Anil Basu, who
came to address a closed-door party meeting
in Singur today. The meeting was held to
chalk out the party’s plans before the
panchayat elections. Party activists present at
the meet resented the way the state
government and the West Bengal Industrial
Development Corporation have denied wages
to the daily labourers for months that they
41
feared would be put on the back burner, once
the Nano car rolls out of the Singur factory.
28 March: A man was found dead inside
the Tata Motors' small car project site in
Singur today, police said. Rajkumar
Biswakarma, who hails from Andal in
Burdwan district, was working as a dumper
driver, Sub-divisional Police Officer, Chandan-
nagar, Kalyan Mukherjee said, adding that he
was found dead at Joymolla locality inside the
site with his head allegedly being smashed.
Mukherjee said it was yet to be ascertained
whether it was a case of homicide or
accident. The body was sent for post-
mortem.
30 March: As media reported today, the
state panchayat department has worked out a
revenue sharing mechanism for the three-tier
panchayat system — right from the zilla
parishad down to the gram panchayat level —
for the local bodies to spearhead devel-
opment projects in the Singur area. Engineers
attached to the zilla parishads will examine
the technical aspects of the applications and
issue the trade licence as also the necessary
sanction for the building plan, while the
panchayat samiti will issue the no-objection
certificates in consultation with the gram
panchayats. According to the mechanism
devised by state panchayat secretary
Manabendra Nath Roy, 50% of the earnings
will go to the respective panchayats and the
rest would go to the Singur panchayat samiti.
2 April: Notwithstanding the opposition
fac-ed by government in acquiring land for
industries, West Bengal Chief Minister
Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today said the
state has to move ahead with industrialisation
despite problems. "There is a problem in
acquiring land (for industries) in West Bengal.
While 63 per cent of the land was
agricultural, 13 per cent was forest cover and
one per cent fallow," he said apparently
referring to the opposition in Nandigram and
Singur. "So only 23 per cent was left for the
industry and that has been filled up. We
cannot stop here and we must move ahead,"
he told reporters replying to a question here.
The issue was part of the discussion at the
CPM congress on the performance of the
Left-ruled states of Kerala, West Bengal and
Tripura.
7 April: Caparo Group chairman, who will
be going to Singur tomorrow, said Britain has
a special affection for Bengal. "It is good to
see that the state is forging ahead in industri-
alisation and third in economic growth among
the states here," Paul said. According to Paul,
the quality manpower is the biggest
advantage of Bengal. "There was never
dearth of quality manpower here," he added.
8 April: The NRI industrialist Lord Swraj
Paul, who is on a business visit to the Tata's
Singur plant, praised the Chief Minister
Buddhadeb Bhattacharya's handling of the
controversial Tata Motors plant at Singur. "I
do not think that there is any other option,
but to industrialise... We will have to
industrialise and work for a better world," he
said after visiting Tata Motors and Caparo
Engineering's plants here. State Congress
Chief and Union Minister Priyaranjan Das
Munshi said, "I have not learnt politics from
Lord Paul. I have learnt politics from the state
of Bengal and we all defend Tata for
expanding its industrial activities in our
country. Tata is a global industrialist. There’s
no doubt about it and we have no quarrel
with the industrial arrangements of Tata.
However, we certainly do not approve the
manner in which the whole thing is being
done by the Chief Minister. We are not
changing the position despite the good works
of Lord Paul." The Trinamool Congress
president said, "I cannot give a certificate to
him (Lord Paul) because he is pleading for
Tata because Tata is giving him business.
This is a business venture nothing else." Lord
Paul’s Caparo engineering will be supplying
components to the Tatas.
13 May: Tata Motors' Rs one lakh car
Nano project is still driving on bumpy streets,
with the Supreme Court seeking to know why
the West Bengal government acquired farm
land for the project in Singur that has now
become a site of a political battle between
Mamta Banerjee's TMC and the ruling CPI(M)
combine.
A bench headed by Chief Justice K G
Balakrishnan while issuing notice to the
company, the state government and the West
Bengal State Industrial Development
Corporation (WBSIDC) today and posted the
matter for further hearing in July. The apex
court was hearing a petition filed by Kedar
Nath Yadav, a practicing lawyer, who sought
immediate halt of Tata Motors' project,
although the Calcutta High Court had earlier
upheld the land acquisition exercise. Tata
Motors, which proposes to roll out the world's
cheapest car Nano from the Singur facility,
submitted before the court that it had
invested over Rs 1,000 crore in the project
and any delay would increase the cost of the
42
car. The company had earlier requested the
apex court not to pass any orders on the
petition without hearing it.
The chief minister, Buddhadeb Bhatta-
charjee, addressed a meeting at Kamarkundu,
Singur.
21 May: The seventh Panchayat poll
results in West Bengal today threw up a
harsh political reality for the Marxist-led Left
Front. For the first time in the past 30 years,
the results reflected a distinct dent in its rural
support base. In Singur Block 1, the area
where the Tata factory is coming up, the CPM
had control of all the three Zilla Parishad
seats. The CPM and CPI had won 32 of the 44
Panchayat Samiti ( the middle tier) seats in
2003. This year, all the three Zilla Parishad
seats have been won by Trinamool which also
won 37 of the 45 Panchayat Samiti seats this
time. The CPM managed only 8. But unlike
East Midnapore Zilla Parishad, the CPM
managed to win the Hooghly Zilla Parishad.
The CPI(M) won't roll back its controversial
policy of industrialisation through farmland
acquisition despite the defeat it suffered in
areas it sought aggressively to implement its
policy, Mr Benoy Konar, Central committee
member, said today. “It's an oversimpl-
ification to suggest that our defeat in
Midnapore East, which includes Nandi-
gram, Singur in Hooghly, South 24-Parga-
nas and North Dinajpur means a rejection of
our policy. Several factors contributed to our
poor showing in those areas and these
include our failure to convince the farmers
about the need for industrial growth along
with agricultural development, corruption in a
section of panchayats, disunity among the
Left Front partners on the question of
industrialisation, alienation of the party from
the people in many areas and communal
propaganda by the PDCI leader Mr
Siddiqulla Chowdhury among the rural popul-
ation,” Mr Konar said.
22 May: As media reported today,
Though the state government has justified
the acquisition of fertile farm land in
Singur by stating that the Tata Motors’ small
car factory will provide both direct and
indirect employment, the state directorate of
employ-ment had said that Tata Motors
Limited (TML) has not notified any vacancy to
any of the employment exchanges in
Hooghly district so far. The information from
the state labour department made it official
that no large-scale direct employment would
be provided in the small car factory in
Singur. While replying to questions under the
Right To Information Act submitted by Mr
Salil Kapat, convener of Indian Society for the
Fundamental and Human Rights, the deputy
director of employment of state labour
department, stated: "As is revealed from the
deputy director of employment, Hoogh-
ly, Tata Motors Limited has not notified
vacany/vacancies to any of the employment
exchanges in Hooghly district." Mr Kapat had
asked whether TML ever intimated to the
state labour department as to how they
would recruit prospective employees for their
factory at Singur and whether Tata Motors
ever approached any of the employment
exchanges for personnel recruitment for their
proposed small car factory. However, the
reply sent to Mr Kapat on 16 May revealed
that Tata Motors is yet to approach the local
employment exchanges for recruiting local
residents for its Singur factory. Earlier, Mr
Nirupam Sen, state commerce and industries
minister, had claimed that all 180 students
from the land-loser families in Singur had
undergone training in various Industrial
Training Institutes (ITIs) and were absorbed
in either the Pune factory of Tata Motors or
other subsidiaries of the group. The minister
also said some had even refused a job.
Though Mr Sen, to be fair, had never
promised large-scale recruitment for the car
factory, the letter from the labour department
has made it official that apart from the few
students from land-loser families who have
undergone training in the ITIs, there is little
hope for common or garden variety of
residents of Singur as far as gainful
employment at the TML factory is concerned.
An associate of the Salim group, many of
whose infrastructure projects fall in the rural
belt captured by the Trinamool Congress, has
said the consortium was “investing in the
state” and expressed confidence of getting
the support of the new zilla parishad. “We
know India is not China. It is a democracy.
And democracy is not a risk for us. The
projects would develop the area. I am
confident of getting support from the new
zilla parishad,” Prasoon Mukherjee, the
director of New Kolkata International Deve-
lopment (NKID), told from Indonesia today.
The Salim group is one of the investors in
NKID. “We are investing in the state,”
Mukherjee added, suggesting that the change
in political equations need not come in the
way of development projects. The group’s
proposed projects include a six-lane highway
43
connecting Barasat in North 24-Parganas to
Raichak in South 24-Parganas, a host of
industrial clusters and housing projects, two
SEZs and two bridges. Some of these projects
are slated to come up in South 24-Parganas,
where the zilla parishad will be formed by
Trinamool. Industry minister Nirupam Sen
also sought to reassure potential investors,
saying “there is no question of a review or
rollback of the industrial policy”.Sen, how-
ever, admitted that people had differences
with the government’s style of functioning.
“We will have to take a lesson, but that does
not mean they have voted against indus-
trialisation in Bengal,” he added. Responding
to a question on the Trinamool leadership’s
threat of halting construction of the Tata
Motors factory at Singur, Sen said: “The
question does not arise. The Tata project will
be completed in due course.”
23 May: As media reported today, No
sooner has Trinamool Congress come to
power in Singur and its surroundings, it has
started speaking the language of Indus-
trialization. There has been no tirade against
the Nano factory coming up fast in Singur, no
attacks on its boundary walls and no potshots
at those going to work at the site. Despite
fears of trouble at the Tata Motors factory
after the change in the power equation, work
went on smoothly at the Singur plant.
Dumpers and trucks entered the premises
carrying iron beams and coils. “Work is going
on,” said a factory spokesperson. Trinamool’s
Becharam Manna, convener of the Krishi Jami
Raksha Committee, which spearheaded the
movement against land acquisition, is no
longer calling for pulling down the boundary
wall. “CPM paid the price for ignoring people’s
wish. Now, we want locals to be given priority
when jobs are given,” Manna said. The
villagers, too, want an end to the politics of
disruption. “The anger was against CPM.
Trinamool will be doing the same thing that
CPM has done so far. We want work. Those
who are speaking against the factory are not
doing the right thing,” said Tarun Malik, a tea
stall owner at Bajemelia. After securing the
three zilla parishad seats in Singur, Trinamool
went on to win the gram panchayat seats as
well. All the 16 seats in Kamarkundu,
Gopalnagar, Doluigachcha (KGD) gram pan-
chayat went to Trinamool, as well as the
Singur-I seat, which CPM had never lost. That
the resentment against land acquisition had
crossed the boundary walls of Singur became
evident after Trinamool won eight gram-
panchayats, including Dankuni, where land
was acquired for a housing project. Sensing
the changing political equation at the ground
level, the district administration was quick to
react. Till now, all administrative decisions
regarding the Tata Motors project were taken
by the Singur panchayat samiti. These
included submission of building plans,
mutations etc. It has been decided that from
now on, the Hooghly zilla parishad — which
has been retained by CPM — will look after
the administrative needs of the project.
Trinamool leaders have not complained about
this decision so far. On Wednesday (21 May),
around 10,000 party supporters assembled at
Singur High School, but no rallies went
towards the factory site. “We have told the
boys to stay away from the factory. We have
nothing against it. We would have welcomed
the decision had fertile land not been
snatched for the factory’s purpose. People
have voted us to power. If they want the
factory to remain, it will remain,” said
Dipankar Ghosh, Trinamool’s Beraberi gram-
panchayat member.
25 May: Bolstered by the victory in
panchayat elections, members of Trinamool
Congress-backed Singur Krishi Jami Raksha
Committee attempted to storm the Tata
Motors’ project area in Singur today around 1
pm. Nearly 200 SKJRC supporters tried to
raze the boundary wall of the premises. They
set afire two watchtowers inside the premises
and clashed with the police. The policemen
lobbed 14 rounds of teargas shells. The
villagers lobbed bricks, injuring one constable.
The clash continued for nearly two hours,
even as work in the area went on unhindered.
A few hours later, addressing a public rally at
Singur’s Kamarkundu Bharati Maidan,
trinamool Chief Ms. Mamata Banerjee
asserted that her party will not compromise
with the legitimate demand of farmers whose
land was forcefully acquired by the
government. “I request the state government
to give back 400 acres to farmers who have
not received the compensation. Our agitation
will continue in Singur as people have voted
us to power,” the TMC chief said. Terming
today’s incident as an isolated one, she
criticised the Singur police for using force to
thwart the farmers’ movement.
Veteran CPM leader Jyoti Basu said the
party will have to learn from its past mistakes
and work together for better results in the
coming elections. Talking to reporters at the
CPM’s state headquarters at Alimuddin Street,
44
where the party’s two-day state committee
meeting started today, Basu said: “We
understand that the opposition has entered
into a grand alliance against us. We will have
to gear up for that and win them back who
have left us.” Basu said it was not possible to
meet Trinamool Congress chief Mamata
Banerjee’s demand to return 400 acres of
land to Singur farmers who have not received
compensation. “Let Mamata say clearly
whether she wants industry or not. Any
sabotage attempt at the factory will not be
tolerated,” said the CPM leader.
26 May: Mr Jyoti Basu must ask his party
to accept the people's verdict in Singur to
make the state government return 400 acres
of land forcibly occupied from the owners for
the small car project, Miss Mamata Banerjee
said today.
27 May: Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee told
his cabinet core committee today that while
planning to take over land in Singur, he knew
the area was fertile and that farmers were
opposed to acquisition but his hands were
tied. “I knew that the land in Singur was
fertile and farmers had grievances over
acquisition. But I was dragged into Singur,” a
minister quoted the chief minister as saying.
In the wake of the uproar over Singur,
Bhattacharjee had earlier said the Tatas had
zeroed in on the area for their car plant
though the government offered land
elsewhere. Today, he also admitted taking
“hasty steps in Nandigram”.
28 May: The Trinamool Congress chief
Mamata Banerjee said today that she had no
objection to the Tata Motors project at Singur
if the government returned the 400 acres of
land to those farmers who did not accept
compensation. “Time and again I have been
saying that we are not against industry. It is
of vital importance to us. Some people might
have sold their land at Singur because they
needed money. I have nothing to say
regarding this. But I want the government to
return the land to other farmers. If that
happens the factory may come up,” said the
TMC chief.
7 June: As media reported today, secur-
ity has been beefed up for labourers engaged
in dredging the canals around the
Singur small car project site after reports that
they had been threatened by some unident-
ified men. Police suspect that those who had
threatened the labourers are Singur Krishi
Jomi Raksha Singur Committee (SKJRC)
supporters. Though the organisation denied
the allegation, it has iterated its intent to stall
work on the project. According to a police
officer, some unidentified men threatened
Mackintosh Burns labourers who were at work
near Bosepukur on 22 May, a day after the
panchayat election results were declared. The
next day, other labourers who were
excavating a canal near Dobandhi, were also
told to stop work and leave Singur. The
unidentified men threatened the labourers
with harm if they were seen again in the
area, he said. The convener of the Singur
Krishi Jomi Raksha Committee (SKJRC), Mr.
Becharam Manna, had earlier urged labourers
to abstain from work on the project and
support the causes of the farmers, but he
denied that the organisation had ever
threatened them. “We have never threatened
labourers. Instead, they were requested to
abstain from work to express solidarity to
farmers whose agricultural plots were taken
away forcefully. The labourers may have been
threatened by some others,” Mr Manna said.
He said that SKJRC supporters would stall
work on the project if the government
refused to return the land plots acquired for
the project to farmers. He added: “We will
not allow labourers to enter the project site. A
fresh movement will be started from 14
June.”
13 June: The West Bengal state
government is not transparent enough to
divulge details of the land leased out to Tata
Motors in Singur. The state chief election
commissioner, Mr Arun Kumar Bhattacharya,
had to issue an order asking the state public
information officer of West Bengal Industrial
Development Corporation to provide
information to Mr Salil Kapat, convener of
Indian Society for the Fundamental and
Human Rights, regarding the land deal in
Singur when he faced bureaucratic buck
passing for nearly a year after submitting
questions in this regard under the Right to
Information (RTI) Act. Mr Kapat had
submitted questions under the RTI Act on 8
June, 2007 seeking some particulars about
the land deal between Tata Motors and the
state government. He wanted to know the
names of the parties between whom the deed
of transfer or lease was executed regarding
the land for Tata Motors in Singur, and
whether any exemption was granted in
respect of the registration. He also wanted to
know about the market value of the land
assessed by the registering authority
including the details of the deficit stump duty
45
and registration fee payable thereon. These
details which the applicant sought were
related to two departments, department of
finance and department of commerce and
industries. The commerce and industries
department was ready to provide the
information within its purview, but the the
finance department had allegedly refused to
provide information on their part citing some
technical problems. Mr Kapat then made two
appeals to the West Bengal Information
Commission seeking justice. Finally the state
chief information commissioner, Mr Arun
Kumar Bhattacharya, conducted a hearing
where concerned authorities from the finance
department and WBIDC were present. After
the hearing, the commissioner ordered the
WBIDC to furnish all the information to Mr
Kapat within 15 days.
14 June: The Tata Nano factory in Singur
is in for trouble. Trinamool Congress
chairperson Mamata Banerjee addressed a
rally with the newly elected panchayat
representatives of her party today and
announced total non-cooperation with the
Tatas. “No panchayat representative of our
party should cooperate with the Tata project
without my permission. The public mandate
has gone against setting up the car factory in
Singur,” said Mamata. Serving an ultimatum
to the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government,
she asked the government to return the land
it has forcibly acquired from unwilling
farmers. Mamata also announced a deadline
for the government, failing which she
threatened to launch an indefinite stir in
Singur block. “I mean it. The government
should return the land by August 20. If it
does not, we will block Durgapur Expressway.
And, this time, there will be no rally. Villagers
will perform their festivals — from Durga Puja
to Eid — on the expressway itself. We will
take to the ultimate,” the Trinamool chief
said. With the party winning 15 of the 16
gram panchayats in Singur block, Mamata
said: “Villagers are with us. We will go by
their wishes and not at the whims of the state
government. I will kick off the movement on
August 20.” Taking the cue, Krishi Jami
Raksha Committee convener and newly
elected panchayat samiti member Becharam
Manna asserted that the Trinamool-run
panchayats will not allow the Tatas to put up
electric wires or electric posts. Some local
activists even went near the boundary wall of
the Tata factory. But Mamata had left the
place by then to meet the Muslim families in
Chanditalla, where two persons died in a road
accident.
15 June: As media reported today, the
state government wants to hold on to the
option of land acquisition as in Singur despite
the political price it paid in the rural polls and
the Centre’s bid to promote direct purchase
by investors. In its note to the parliamentary
standing committee on the amendment bill to
the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, the state land
and land reforms department has said there
“should not be any ceiling” on the amount of
land to be acquired by the government. The
note will be sent to the committee after it is
vetted by the CPM state secretariat and the
central leadership. The amendment bill, under
the scrutiny of the parliamentary committee
along with the Rehabilitation and
Resettlement Bill, 2007, says the government
can acquire 30 per cent of the land required
for private projects provided the remaining 70
per cent is directly purchased by the
investors. “We are opposed to the ceiling not
only because of fragmented landholding in
Bengal, which makes direct purchase
cumbersome, but also because it deprives
many land-losers of a solatium,’’ land minister
Abdur Rezzak Mollah said. In Singur, those
who sold their land willingly had received 30
per cent over the plot price as solatium. The
land department’s note wants provisions “for
acquisition for government companies…
development authorities and local bodies”. It
also wants “provision for land acquisition for
infrastructure like industrial parks… by the
46
government or its undertakings” as well as for
education and healthcare facilities,
government offices and housing. Mollah said:
“It would help the West Bengal Industrial
Development Corporation and other agencies
to hold land that can be leased out for private
or joint sector projects.’’ In Singur, the
government had transferred land to the
corporation, which leased it out to Tata
Motors. The state wants 50 per cent of the
land price as compensation for sharecroppers.
The Singur farmers were paid 25 per cent.
“The law now makes provision for payment of
six times the price of a year’s yield,” he said.
His department also wants the solatium
doubled from 30 per cent. Although the
department has “no objection” to the Centre’s
proposals for paying land-losers the plots’
“prospective value” — or shares of the
industries to be set up — the party and the
government are yet to make up their mind.
Mollah said: “The bill says the prospective
value will be offered only when the land is not
used for the original purpose. But we are
laying stress on the cancellation of the lease
in such cases.” He wants the government to
give back 40 per cent of the acquired plot to
landlosers after developing it.
Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee told a rally in
North 24-Parganas’ Deganga, where the CPM
lost the rural polls, that the industrialisation
drive would continue because “we have to
provide jobs to educated youths”. “We need
jobs, jobs, jobs,” he said.
SINGUR TIMELINE compiled and prepared by Asis Kumar Das, updated on 18 June
2008 (sometimes texts directly have been reproduced from Newspapers, Reports and
Articles). It is welcome if anyone share initiative to develop this Timeline. It is also requested
to send suggestions, corrections and revisions to asis.kumar.das@gmail.com

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Published: 18 June 2008

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