The West Bengal government on Tuesday put the Singur ball in Mamata Banerjee?s court, giving its consent to the railway minister?s proposal to set up a rail coach factory there.
?On behalf of the state government, I have written to the Railway Board chairman, giving consent to the railway minister?s proposal,? chief secretary Ashok Mohan Chakraborty told reporters at the state secretariat.
Soon after the Lok Sabha elections in May, Banerjee had visited Singur and announced that she wanted to set up a rail coach factory there. Even officials of the railway ministry were surprised by her announcement, as in the Budget speech, Banerjee had spoken of a coach factory only in Kanchrapara.
Over the past few months, Banerjee has renewed her resolve in this regard, pointing out recently that she was willing to set up the factory either in a joint venture with the state government or under the public-private-partnership model.
In the letter addressed to SS Khurana, chairman of the Railway Board, Chakraborty said the state government has in-principle agreed to the rail minister?s proposal. He said the state government has been exploring alternative use of the land for development of industry. While 645.67 acres have been leased out to Tata Motors, 225 acres have been leased to auto component manufacturing units. Now that Tata Motors has moved out of the project following an agitation led by Banerjee, the state government is likely to ask WBIDC to speed up the process of getting back the land.
The land is still leased to the Tatas and the agreement comes up for renewal in April. But during his visit to Kolkata for the annual general meeting of Tata Tea, group chairman Ratan Tata had said the company would not come in the way of development in Singur and would return the land if it was compensated.
On Tuesday, Trinamool Congress leader Partha Chatterjee said the rail coach factory would come up on 600 acres. ?We have been fighting for returning 400 acres to the owners. There is no way we can back out from that,? he said.
According to a senior railway official, the chairman received the letter on Monday. ?Apart from budgetary approvals, a project of this size will require clearances from the Cabinet,? he said. The official confirmed that the ministry has been looking for land for a rail coach factory. ?It might be Singur in that case,? he said, hinting that the process could start even before the railway budget next year.
According to him, the factory proposed in Singur will not be of a size ?less than? the one at Rae Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh. The Rs 2,000-crore Rae Bareilly rail coach factory will have a capacity of producing 850 coaches per year, providing 8,000-10,000 job opportunities. So far, railway officials have been concentrating on the Kanchrapara project, as Singur did not have the budgetary approval.