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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Trinamool farmers revolt against Didi’s Railways by Susenjit Guha

Trinamool farmers revolt against Didi’s Railways by Susenjit Guha

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published Published on Dec 12, 2010   modified Modified on Dec 12, 2010

Farmers affiliated to the Trinamool Congress whose agricultural land was acquired for a railway project are threatening a major agitation if their family members are not provided with jobs immediately. Their land was acquired for the proposed 20 km Dankuni-Furfura Sharif track in West Bengal and Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee had promised a job for every family whose land was taken.

Agricultural landowners of Furfura Sharif, a major Muslim pilgrimage site in Hooghly district had earlier lauded Banerjee when she inaugurated the project in April 2010. But they are now angry at the unfulfilled promises. Their pleas to visiting railway officials for a written agreement fell on deaf ears. They are seeing in this a ploy by the Trinamool supremo to get votes as it is impossible for the Railways to provide jobs to nearly 500 people for the 200 acres of land acquired.

Mamata Banerjee has also gone on record demanding that the industries coming up on farmland have to return 10% of the developed property to former owners. She demanded that developers and industrialists, who had acquired farmland at a lower price in the past, should adequately compensate former owners with the prevailing market price when they chose to begin construction. This may come to haunt her as evident from another agitation launched by nearly 800 Trinamool supporters led by Pradip Bhuyian in Sankrail in Howrah district against a proposed Rs 249 cr railway coach factory. They are demanding compensation for 630 acres of farmland taken 28 years ago by the Railways during Madhavrao Scindia's tenure as Railway Minister for the construction of a goods yard.

The yard has not materialised till date, but Banerjee went ahead and inaugurated the coach factory project. Protesters forced Trinamool legislator Sheetal Sardar to beat a hasty retreat when he came with railway contractors to start work on the factory. Even though the farmers finally allowed the contractor, Simplex, employed by Rail Vikas Nigam, to commence land filling at the site, they are demanding that the labourers should be sourced from among them or else they would renew their agitation. The future of the project is still in limbo as Simplex and DRM, Kharagpur, are non-committal about fulfilling the demand.

Trinamool workers are angry at Banerjee's recent statement following the agitation that the Railways might consider moving out if the people had reservations about the project.

Pradip Bhuyian alleges that Banerjee refused to meet the delegation of Trinamool affiliated farmers from Sankrail when they visited her in Kolkata several times in the past one year demanding suitable compensation. Bhuyian, who lost 25 bighas of land to the Railways, is not against the project like the others, but says, "We will not allow work to proceed unless our demands are fulfilled as we represent the land losers."

A series of protests against the apathy of the Railways to rehabilitate the land losers forced the local Trinamool leadership to resettle the 166 families affected by a proposed freight corridor project at Dankuni.

This was done particularly after allegations that muscle power was used to evict them were reported in the media.


The Sunday Guardian, 12 December, 2010, http://www.sunday-guardian.com/a/1253


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