Nothing Vedic about it

Nothing Vedic about it
The Financial Express, September 9, 2009, Page 7

Sudipta Datta

The swiftness with which the West Bengal government canned a planned IT project after it hit a land hurdle may have surprised many, but there’s no doubting the fact that with Singur still weighing heavy in the air, no one’s prepared to take chances. Yet, Singur—where some farmers resisted the takeover but many willingly gave away 600 acres for the Tata small car project—now seems a simple plot in comparison with the Vedic Village fiasco. Consider how a 7-star luxury spa was allowed to spread its wings on vested land (meant for public good) after the land and land reforms department reached an out-of-court settlement in 2005 with the promoters, leasing out 44 acres for 99 years for a paltry sum of Rs 97 lakh when the market price was much higher. This is just one of the worms flowing out of the can that was prised open after a mob set fire to parts of the spa on August 23, ostensibly after a soccer game went awry. The incident sparked a chain of events, not least widespread allegations of land grab and price anomalies, finally leading to the scrapping of an IT project coming up next to the spa in which IT majors Infosys and Wipro Technologies were promised 90 acres each—and where Raj Kishore Modi, the jailed promoter of Vedic Village, was a partner.

Explaining the reasons for dumping the IT park, slated to come up over 600 acres, the IT department said “the government does not want to be involved in any illegal activity... the IT department cannot proceed with the project.” Both Infosys and Wipro will surely think twice before they set foot in Bengal.

The whole project including a township was planned over 1,200 acres with the government getting 600 acres free from the private parties with the arrangement that Webel, the nodal IT and ITeS agency in the state, would build the infrastructure in the area. For Infy and Wipro’s 180 acres, the IT majors planned an investment of Rs 500 crore each and at least 10,000 jobs.

So, how will the West Bengal government attract industry and create jobs? If it failed to convince the people of the need to give up land for a landmark car factory at Singur, it appears to have looked the other way as Vedic Village promoters went about acquiring land for the IT and township project using all means and, now as it turns out after the arrest of the arson mastermind Gaffar Mollah, sometimes with strong-arm tactics. A huge stockpile of arms and ammunition was found at the luxurious spa premises.

The silence of Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee in the Vedic Village incident has been loud and clear. Though she has spoken out about the arms haul, she hasn’t really demanded a CBI probe into the land acquisition process as she is often wont to do over any perceived ruling front government misdemeanour. With allegations flying thick and fast that her party MLAs were close to the Vedic promoters, she says the IT project land should be handed over to farmers.

The IT department has clarified that it explored all available options—land acquisition, land purchase and public private partnership—to acquire land, but in vain; it said that it kept everyone in the loop, and had got the Cabinet nod for the public-private partnership because it needed land desperately, having failed repeatedly to deliver on commitments on land. As soon as the Vedic Village drama began to unfold, the housing and land ministries cried out for scrapping the IT project—the same ministries which had okayed the project months ago.

If the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government’s pro-industry image is being dragged through the mud, it’s also because there seems to be a terrible hurry—not the CPM’s strong point—to get things done.

Which is great news for potential investors, but not if the end result is a stillborn project. In Singur, if there was a huge communication gap between the government and villagers, for the IT project next to Vedic Village, the government did not want to get involved till the land was acquired for them by private parties, in this case Modi and another real estate investor Amarnath Shroff of the Diamond Group. It doesn’t seem to have worked. While a section of the government feels that investors should directly buy land from farmers—the Videocon Group and JSW Steel have done that —it’s not an easy process either with landholdings so fragmented.

The government will obviously have to find a way out of the mess.

Ironically, the last week has been one of the most active in recent months for West Bengal industry —there have been investments announced in real estate, hospitality, food processing.

But there’s just 1% of fallow land the government can work on for industry, that too in remote areas of Bankura and Birbhum—that is if it can’t win over farmers to the industry cause. That farmland in West Bengal constitutes 62% of the total land is not a problem because even a small amount of this can host an industrial revival. The problem is that politics has become incredibly messy. The road ahead doesn’t look easy for the Trinamool either.