Tata Motors has welcomed the latest rehabilitation package for the farmers at Singur, announced by the West Bengal government.

Welcoming the new package, Tata Motors said in a press statement issued yesterday  ''Tata Motors appreciates and supports the recent initiatives of the Government of West Bengal for the residents of Singur area where it had acquired land for Tata Motors Nano project."

It also added ''Tata Motors decided to set up its Nano plant at Singur to play an active role in the re-industrialisation of the state of West Bengal and make a contribution to the economic development of the region, providing direct and indirect employment opportunities and participating in overall community development.

Tata Motors expects the latest package to evoke a positive response from the "residents of Singur and that all stakeholders will contribute to create a congenial environment conducive to the long-term sustained operations of an industrial enterprise."

The latest resettlement package for villagers whose land has been acquired for the Tata Nano project, announced by the CPM-led Left Front government West Bengal through newspaper advertisements yesterday just a head of the popular Durga pooja, has brought out chinks in the Trinamool Congress.

A section of Trinamool leaders have now begun voicing fears of losing the support of the farmers displaced by the Nano project, in view of the latest resettlement package of higher compensation, land, jobs and village development projects, but rejected by their party president Mamata Banerjee.

On Sunday, the government published its new rehabilitation plans in all leading dailies, which these leaders feel would weaken the party's current agitation.

These Trinamool organisers say that 550 of the 2,200 hundred farmers who have refused to accept compensation even though they had lost their land to the Nano project, may desert the Trinamool-led agitation and accept the government's revised package.

The new resettlement package
According to the new package, 70 acres of land within the project area will now be available to the villagers, up from the 40 acre earlier. Compensation will be hiked by 50 per cent taking it to between Rs4 to Rs6 lakh per acre.

Even the sharecroppers whose names appear on the records would get an additional 50-per cent compensation where the land is owned by absentee landlords. Agricultural labourers and sharecroppers whose names do not show on government records would be entitled to a lump sum payment of 300 days of their wages, amounting to between Rs21,000 and Rs24,000 at the NREGA wage rate.

The state government has also said that those farmers whose land had been acquired, but had refused to accept compensation would get an additional 10 per cent, if they appealed to the government by 22 September.

In addition, the CPM government has also undertaken to provide government jobs or indirect employment within one year of commissioning of the project, to one member of each displaced family who had received skills training.

Finally, as part of the package, the government has promised peripheral development schemes surrounding the villages, with the cost of providing roads, hospitals, schools and colleges being funded by the government through the gram panchayat.

However, Mamata Banerjee has rejected the package saying the state government had reneged on its earlier verbal promises agreed on 7 September during a meeting between the state government, the Trinamool and governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi.

She has repeated her earlier demand for 300 acres of land for resettlement at the complex by shifting out the ancillary units across the highway, opposite the project site.

She has also threatened to revive the agitation at Singur, saying her party would lead a protest to the site of the Tata Motor plant on Tuesday, 16 September.

To combat the Trinamool agitation, apart from having released the details of the new package in all leading newspapers, the Left Front parties plan to go to Singur today to hold a rally to publicise the details of the package rejected by Banerjee.

Welcoming the new package, Tata Motors said in a press statement issued yesterday  ''Tata Motors appreciates and supports the recent initiatives of the government of West Bengal for the residents of Singur.

It also added ''Tata Motors decided to set up its Nano plant at Singur to play an active role in the re-industrialisation of the state of West Bengal and make a contribution to the economic development of the region, providing direct and indirect employment opportunities and participating in overall community development.''