After learning its lessons from Nandigram, the West Bengal government is willing to try out alternative models of land acquisition and rehabilitation policy The land acquisition debate in West Bengal refuses to die down. There were two developments last fortnight which should clinch the fact that there is going to be no turning back on industrialisation in the state even if it means continuing with farmland acquisition. One, was the 'all-clear' from the High Court for Singur. Two, and more importantly, the government going on record that it has learnt its lessons from Nandigram and is willing to try out alternative models of land acquisition and rehabilitation policy, the upcoming 2,300-acre aerotropolis (more than double of land for Singur plant) being a case in point. "Caution" is going to be the buzzword in the industrialisation drive, as chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee himself proclaimed while speaking at the annual general meeting of Bharat Chamber of Commerce in less than a week after the High Court's favourable verdict. In what came as a major boost to the state government, the Calcutta High Court on 19 January ruled that the state government had no mala fide intention in acquiring land for Tata's Singur plant and that there were no illegalities in the entire process. Dismissing all the 11 petitions against the acquisition, the hc division bench upheld that the acquisition was for a public purpose as the compensation package came from the state via the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (wbidc). The hc order should put at rest the last of the troubles still being speculated in some quarters for the small car plant. The government had acquired 997 acres by invoking the Land Acquisition Act of 1898. Now that legal sanction for Singur has come and the government can call it the first big-ticket success at industrialisation, it is treading ahead warily. Land for the proposed aero-tropolis (airport city) at Durgapur, MoU for which was signed on the same day that the hc windfall came, would be directly purchased from farmers and then leased out to the developer company. The RslO,000-crore project, which involves setting up urban infrastructure with an industrial hub and it park built around an airport in the Asansol-Durgapur region, would need some 2,300 acres of land. As the project is being jointly developed by Bengal Aerotropolis Projects Ltd (bapl) and wbidc, commerce and industries minister Nirupam Sen said the latter will help the company get the necessary land. "We will enter into price negotiations with the owners and purchase land for the aerotropolis. It will then be leased to developers for 99 years," the minister said. Indeed the decision to buy out land directly for projects is a result of the protracted hassles that acquisition ran into ever since land was taken over in Singur during 2006. Having experimented with acquisition, the state government now wants to ascertain how a negotiated purchase works out. Commerce and industries secretary Sabyasachi Sen has said, "We have identified the land and negotiations are on with the farmers regarding the price. It might take some time as a huge chunk of land is involved and also the process involved is different than land acquisition." Customised approach to all issues related to land takeover is what the government is going to actively pursue. A policy decision is being taken not to rely on a single rehabilitation package for land losers. Alternative models of package would be thought out, depending upon the kind of land that is being taken up for industrialisation and the number of people being displaced. "The industrialisation process will continue in West Bengal," Bhattacharjee said, "and we will gradually acquire land for this. But rehabilitation packages will vary from case to case." To substantiate, he pointed out that as the jsw Bengal steel's upcoming 10 million tonne steel plant at Salboni affected only a limited number (137 families) an offer of equity could be made. However as the number of displaced in Singur was higher at 12,000, a different compensation package had to be offered. More support for the chief minister's industrialisation agenda has come from academia. Eminent economist and Cornell University professor Kaushik Basu has said that even fertile land could be taken over as long as compensation paid to land losers is much more than what the others are getting. He even talked of the principle of 'eminent domain' prevalent in the US - that could be used here to acquire land of unwilling owners for projects benefiting large chunks of people.