External affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday said industry and development required land and those leading movements against land acquisition should know when to oppose and when not to.
?Industry needs modern technology and has to venture into new areas. Land is needed for development,? he said. ?There are several instances where development has failed to take off due to movements. How could development take place if movements come in the way of land acquisition?? Addressing a huge public meeting on the occasion of the rebirth of the Kulti Iron Works as a modern unit under Steel authority of India Ltd, the veteran Congress leader said, ?We have to be tolerant?a line needs to be drawn between when to oppose and when not to.?
Mukherjee?s caution came a day before chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was scheduled to visit Nandigram, the epicentre of the movements against land acquisition in West Bengal. This will be his first public meeting at Nandigarm since CPI(M) cadres used force to recapture the area from the people who were opposing land acquisition.
Speaking on the occasion, Ram Vilas Paswan, union minister of chemicals & fertilizers and steel, said, the UPA government had sanctioned Rs 13,500 crore for IISCO?s modernization. Thanking Mukherjee for his support, Paswan said, SAIL would spend Rs 20,000 crore ? 40% of its total outlay of Rs 50,000 crore ?on West Bengal alone over the next three years. Kulti Works, earlier known as Bengal Iron Works, was closed since March 2003 due to chronic losses.