Protesting too much

Be it Singur, Narmada or the various SEZ projects, activists are blocking them almost for activism’s sake, holding up development which would benefit the larger community. Their response to these claims is — why should the poor have to pay for these larger benefits? They are absolutely correct.

But if we accept this premise, it ultimately boils down to the matter of compensation to the affected community This can be structured to ensure a win-win for all, ideally before starting work. Take Singur: the West Bengal Government acquired a thousand acres, handed over to the Tatas to establish the Nano project, which apart from providing employment, would also encourage ancillaries to provide further employment and development, and hopefully attract other automobile majors in the future.

The Trinamul Congress (TC) is now demanding that 400 acres of this be returned to the owners, who resisted this acquisition all along. This is odd timing, given that the world awaits the Nano launch in October 2008, and 85 per cent of the work is completed. Ratan Tata claims to have sunk 1500 crores, not a small sum. As the 400 acres would not be contiguous, they cannot physically be returned. The TC’s Shylockian demand calls up the question - what do they want?

Let us now examine some of problems and see if there are some possible solutions:

1. The compensation paid is not fair or too low.

A. This can be examined and a reasonable figure arrived at based on agreed criteria by all stakeholders, if this hypothesis is proved to be correct.

2.The land was acquired 2 years ago and the value of land has increased exponentially and so the compensation is not adequate today.

A. The reason why the land value has increased in this manner is because of the project and the entire surrounding community has gained from this.

B. The key to being fair is quick disposal of the compensation amounts so that they can be invested. This is what activists should be fighting for and if delayed, penal interest rates should be applied.

3.Farmers are not used to handling large sums of money and would squander it threatening their futures. Can activists engage the help of financial experts to offer financial products to farmers where they would get as much as they were earning and reinvest a part of the earning to take care of future inflation? The compensation to be arrived at could consider such a scheme.

... contd.

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