From a subsistence agrarian economy to a sound industrial economy is the slogan of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, while he advocates for Tata Motors small car project against all odds.
The project, in reality, is going one step ahead. It is transforming a group of farmers into a group of entrepreneurs.
Some former landowners of Beraberi and Gopal Nagar are joining hands to form partnership companies which in turn are bidding for the huge civil construction work of the Tata Motors project. The land owners are using the amount they have got as compensation as the seed capital for their respective outfits.
This is not all, few of them are wise enough to induct a technical hands with experience in civil construction work as a working partner in the company.
Satindranath Saha, a farmer from Beraberi, has formed Agnibina Associates with 21 other villagers for doing construction work at Singur. He informed that he had around six acre of land for which he has got close to Rs 40 lakh as compensation from his land that falls under the Tata Motors site. Saha has invested Rs 2 lakh in the company.
"There are 22 partners in our company. Out of them, 16 had offered land for the project. The remaining six have been inducted as technical partners as we have no experience in civil construction work. I used to do the farming in my land for last 30 years. But I feel that we can earn more now," he added.
Debasis Mondal, the technical partner of Agnibina added that they have got orders from Tata group for the construction of 107 hutment for the construction workers of the Tata Motors project.
"They are planning 309 hutment for accommodating 25,000 construction workers. We have got orders for 107," he added. The director for industries of West Bengal, M V Rao, said that the villagers of Beraberi have so far formed five partnership companies for civil construction work.
"More than 200 land owners are involved in this entire process. Besides, Beraberi, now villagers of Gopal Nagar are also coming forward to form such companies. We are acting as a facilitator for this," he added.
