Indicating the shape of things to come, state BJP chief Samik Bhattacharya has recently pointed out that to encourage big investments in the state, the government intervention is necessary owing to fragmented nature of land plots. He was speaking at a meeting of local industrialists on Tuesday.

Operation Barga initiated by Left Front which redistributed plots among landless peasants is like an uncharted mine to big projects. It gave rise to small and fragmented plots and made it difficult to acquire large contagious plots of land which a big industrialisation project needs.

Urban Land Ceiling Act would be scrapped, Bhattacharya further said indicating the BJP led government seeks to make good the poll promise of generating employment opportunities in the state. A direct land sale policy is in place in the state instead of the new Urban Land Ceiling Act.

The farmers are now offered 1.5 times of the current market price of their plots if the government acquires them. This is stated to be a handicap of the policy leading to big investments being shy of West Bengal.

Incidentally, Tata Motors had invested Rs 1800 crores in Singur in 2007-08. Letting the Tatas negotiate the price with the farmers, 997.17 acres was acquired.

In all, 645 acres were earmarked for the car factory. Ancillary units were to be set up in 290 acres. Seeing a strongly entrenched Left Front government burning it's fingers in the Singur and Nandigram peasant stir, the TMC dispensation did not acquire any land for 15 years for industrial units or government projects. Land Acquisition Act came into effect in 2013 in the country.

This was two years after 2011 when TMC replaced Left Front as the ruling dispensation. But with the memory of the twin peasants agitation fresh among TMC leadership, fearing a fresh backlash, the new legislation was not implemented in West Bengal.

A "sweetener" is an essential pre-requisite if land is to be acquired by the government for a new project. In so many words, the BJP state government has to make the deal attractive to the farmers lest their collective ire paves the path of departure of the saffron government like the Left dispensation.

Lack of incentives is being considered to be a major blockade triggering people's resistance, a senior official of the state land reforms department said. Requesting anonymity, he added that the land losers have to be given jobs in the upcoming projects.

The current Land Acquisition Act offers four times the existing market price of the plots. But one cannot have a scenario sans a Trinamool agitation opposing land acquisition. The legacy of a violent peasant agitation which West Bengal witnessed dogs any big ticket project. Trust is low among farmers.

There is a preference for land-for-land or long term. benefits over cash compensation. This is vulnerable for inflation. The TMC government has created land banks. But it is a halfway house like many other initiatives of this government. Much of the land in these banks are from closed public sector units having legal ambiguities which complicate its use.

Kickstarting of big projects will restart the debate of industrialisation versus farming. The core conflict remains protection of multi-crop agricultural land as in Singur. Be that as may, the new dispensation will have an agitation spearheaded by TMC once it starts land acquisition. Land ceiling in rural areas of West Bengal is 24.22 acres.

It is a major impediment to set up industries within this limit, sources in land and land reforms department stated. Industrialists faced harassment on the issue of "regularisation" of surplus land.

Though away from the state Assembly, Mamata Banerjee remains the epicenter of any agitation in the state. Though not the person she was during Nandigram and Singur agitations, land acquisition by BJP government will see her resurface in her element.

Aware of this factor, any investor worth his salt will be chary of putting his capital at risk. And the BJP government notwithstanding a landslide electoral success cannot prevent Mamata Banerjee from hitting the streets especially when she has emotive issue which catapulted her to power-land acquisition. (IPA Service)