Patience and transparency can avert situations like Singur or Nandigram, the Left Front government has discovered, having managed to get around 8000 people living in four villages in the Asansol-Durgapur belt to agree to the idea of relocating.
It was not a question of land acquisition for industry, as at Singur and Nandigram. The villagers, located in the coal belt, were sinking as old and abandoned mines under them cave in. But the villagers were reluctant to move to new locations without a rehabilitation package in hand.
Around two years ago, the state government began talking to the villagers and all stakeholders and explaining the alternatives. The villagers were reluctant, till the Union government came up with a definite package of Rs 2,350 crore recently, covering the cost of building offsite infrastructure and buildings.
Then on September 2, the Asansol Durgapur Development Authority held a workshop, inviting all political parties, trade unions and non-governmental organizations.
ADDA officials led by their chairman Bangsagopal Chowdhury, who is also the CPI(M) member of Parliament for Asansol, managed to get the diverse groups to agree that they would not oppose the relocation plan.
On Thursday, ADDA officials met commerce & industries minister Nirupam Sen at Writer’s Buildings to discuss the rehabilitation package. Sen’s department is the nodal agency for the relocation work.
“We are carrying out surveys in 10 villages but, initially, four villages have been identified for immediate relocation,” Sen said. The villages are Samdi, Kenda, Harishpur and Bangalpara.
“Our feeling is that the Opposition will not resist the relocation plan any more, since we have secured a consensus,” Sen said.
He said the government had managed to convey the gravity of the situation to the villagers.
“I think that if we can demonstrate clearly our rehabilitation moves, people can be reasonable,” Sen said.
