Just beside what was meant to be the Nano manufacturing plant, abandoned by the Tatas and now largely reduced to rubble overgrown with wild vegetation, 70-year-old Sheikh Md Ali says his son was forced to migrate to Uttarakhand, where he works as a gold artisan, because of what unfolded here two decades ago.
“I have seen it all. How the Nano factory was proposed and slowly built here. How shops and other businesses began to grow around it. My son trained here and worked as an apprentice for Rs 4,500 a month. Then the agitation started and everything stopped,” says Ali, a resident of Joymollah village and a farmer who received compensation from the then Left government for his land.
The Singur anti-land acquisition agitation that began in 2006, along with that of Nandigram, proved pivotal for the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and catapulted Mamata Banerjee to power in 2011.
Though the Supreme Court in 2016 termed the acquisition process illegal and the land was returned amid much fanfare by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, large tracts still remain uncultivable. The state government continues to provide Rs 2,000 and 16 kg of rice to 3,611 families classified as unwilling farmers.
Two decades on, Singur remains the symbol of the government’s failure to bring industries to the state and a lack of jobs and migration are key electoral issues. Just before the ongoing Assembly elections were announced, the TMC government launched the Yuva Sathi scheme, offering a monthly stipend of Rs 1,500 to unemployed youth. Government insiders say more than 84 lakh applications have been received under the scheme — over 65 lakh through camps across all 294 Assembly constituencies and another 19 lakh online. Many have begun receiving the money, officials say.
While the BJP and other Opposition parties have targeted Banerjee over her government’s track record on creating jobs, the CM has emphasised job creation as a priority.
Abandoned Tata Nano factory site. (Express photo by Partha Paul)
Ali, however, seems unimpressed. “Will this Rs 1,500 secure a job for unemployed youth? Will Rs 2,000 and 16 kg of rice secure a family’s future in Singur? How long will my son have to work in other states like most youths here?” he asks.
“Look at the land. It neither gave jobs nor can it be cultivated. For 18 years (since Tatas moved out), it has been like this,” he adds.
Jobs top on voters’ minds
About 10 feet away, a group of youths are perched on a makeshift bamboo “machan (loft)” along the road. All of them are gold artisans working in different parts of the country, like many of their peers from Singur.
Sheikh Imran (26), whose name was deleted during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, works in Almora in Uttarakhand. “Here, there is no work. In Almora, we earn Rs 30,000–35,000 per month. Why will we stay here? I also get Rs 1,500 under the Yuva Sathi scheme, but that is just pocket money,” he says.
About half a kilometre away, at Beraberi market, Saikat Dhara (25) runs a fertiliser shop. A trained farmer, he is the grandson of Dudhkumar Dhara, one of the prominent faces of the anti-land acquisition movement.
“We lost 5.5 bighas of land inside the project area. After getting it back following the Supreme Court order, we could cultivate only 2.5 bighas. It is difficult and costly to make the land cultivable again because of concrete and iron debris,” he says, adding that people now want both industry and agriculture.
“Without industrialisation, financial conditions will not improve. Let’s see what happens after the election,” he says.
Bandana Das (60) echoes Dhara’s views but says industries should be set up through “due process”. “We bought two small shops for my two sons, who could not get jobs,” she adds.
The ‘ghost’ site
A glance at the abandoned project site tells its own story. Amid grassland and rubble lie concrete pipes scattered along the internal roads. Following complaints from villagers, a new canal has been dug to address waterlogging during the monsoon.
“I have 10 cottahs of land inside the project area, which is now covered with wild grass and bushes. I cannot cultivate it even after so many years as the soil has chunks of concrete, stones and iron. While the land was initially demarcated, it is not anymore. The pillars vanished during levelling. My four brothers and I now survive on land outside the project area. I think it is time industry returns here,” says Ajit Hambhir (46) of Beraberi.
Tata Motors announced the Nano factory on May 18, 2006, following which the Left Front government acquired 997.5 acres across six mouzas — Gopalnagar, Beraberi, Bajemelia, Khaserbheri, Singherberi and Joymollah — for the project.
In December 2007, Banerjee, then Leader of the Opposition, undertook a 26-day hunger strike against the Left government’s move. The protests forced Tata Motors to withdraw from the project on October 3, 2008. Three years later, Banerjee came to power riding on the momentum the Singur and Nandigram agitations generated.
With only about 30% of the returned land cultivable, some villagers took up pisciculture with government support. Three ponds were dug with plans for plantations along their banks, but the initiative failed.
“All those ponds have dried up. There is no water,” says Dhara.
This time, both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and CM Mamata Banerjee have held rallies near Singur.
In 2021, the TMC’s Becharam Manna won the seat, while his wife Karabi Manna won from Haripal. Manna defeated Rabindranath Bhattacharya, a former TMC MLA who switched to the BJP, by 25,923 votes.
“I am confident of winning. People are with us. They have not forgotten the Singur agitation. Development has taken place here,” says Manna, who will be up against the BJP’s Arup Kumar Das and Debashis Chatterjee of the CPI(M).
About 25 km away, near the Hindustan Motors plant in Hooghly’s Uttarpara, Sonali Basu (30) disagrees. “Nothing has happened in Singur. Here too, the Hindustan Motors plant, which manufactured the iconic Ambassador car, shut down in May 2014. Where will we get jobs? Unemployment is a serious issue,” she says.
