New Delhi: The West Bengal government admitted that nearly 30 per cent of the farmers whose lands were acquired for the Tata Motors project at Singur were not paid any compensation because they refused to accept the amount.
Owners of 671 acre had taken compensation, while for the rest of the acquired land, the owners had not, the state government said in an affidavit to the Calcutta High Court.
The total land acquired for the Tata project was 997.11 acre. Of this 645.67 acre has been leased out to Tata Motors for its small car factory.
Apart from the land given to Tata Motors, 290 acre have been reserved for ancillary industries, while WBIDC has kept for itself 47.11 acre for providing infrastructure and to meet other contingent necessities, the affidavit, submitted recently said.
WBIDC allocated 14.33 acre of additional land to the West Bengal State Electricity Board for installing a sub-station. Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee who has been leading an agitation at Singur in Hooghly district demanding return of farmland to unwilling owners, has claimed that such land amounted to 402 acre.
Banerjee has claimed that the Tata Motors small car project would not require more than 600 acre.
According to Land and Land Reforms minister Abdur Rezzak Mollah, controversy lay over acquisition of 326 acre of land, wherein the owners have not given consent and have not taken compensation.
Of the 326 acre, owners of 9.75 acre could not claim compensation owing to defective title documents, the affidavit said. The government denied that any land has been forcibly acquired and said that acquisition has been made in accordance with the provisions of Land Acquisition Act, 1894.
Stating that the land had been acquired for public purpose, a joint secretary of the land and land reforms department said in the affidavit that the purpose was "employment generation and socio-economic development of the area by setting up the Tata small car project."
With inputs from PTI
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