Don’t take cultivable land for industry: Pawar

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With chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattachar-jee sitting by his side, Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar made it clear on Saturday that the Centre disapproved of acquisition of fertile land for industry. Had Mr Bhattacharjee paid heed to the Centre’s advice, his party would not have faced such a backlash from the people who are angry over his land acquisition overdrive.

“We are not against the industry. It is important for the development of the nation. But the state government should not acquire double-crop land with access to easy irrigation facility,” Mr Pawar added.
He was speaking at the conclusion of the conference on the second phase of green revolution held in the city. Six states Bihar, Orissa, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal participated in the conference.
Mr Pawar pointed out that the volume of land for agriculture was diminishing. “The land which can yield good crop and has irrigation facility has to be preserved. That is why we are not encouraging acquisition of this type of land for industrial purposes,” he elaborated.
The land issue seems to have again started haunting Mr Bhattacharjee. On Friday, senior CPI(M) leader and his Cabinet colleague Abdur Rezzak Molla stoked the industry Vs agriculture controversy. While presenting the budget of land and land reforms department, Mr Molla turned Mr Bhattacharjee’s industry-is-our-future slogan on its head. “Bengal’s future depends on agriculture,” he asserted.
It was the acquisition of fertile farmland for Tata’s now-abandoned Nano project at Singur which kicked up a storm in the state.
The state government’s plan to acquire 10,000 acres for a chemical hub in Nandigram added fuel to the fire. If any one factor can be attributed to the start of the Left Front’s continued reverses, it is land issue.
Meanwhile, Mr Bhattacharjee was the lone chief minister who attended the conference Chief ministers of four other states gave it a skip while Jharkhand’s Assembly is under suspended animation. These states were represented by the agriculture ministers and senior bureaucrats. Mr Bhattacharjee was accompanied by state agriculture and consumer affairs minister Naren Dey.