Bhujia unit to pull out after Singur stir

SINGUR: Call it the Singur syndrome if you want - a snacks factory off the Durgapur Expressway, about 10 kilometres from the deserted Singur land, witnessed on Friday a replay of violent agitation that forced a virtual shutdown of the factory, which engages 350 workers. Bhujia baron and group chairman of the Haldiram factory told the media that he would shift out of Singur.
Hundreds of defiant farmers from the neighbouring Ghanashyampur and Teliapara villages mobbed the factory spread over 40 bighas of land early in the morning on Friday saying that the untreated foul discharge from the factory was polluting the adjoining farmland. Within a hour a section among the agitators went berserk and forced into the factory asking the employees to come out of the compound.
Farmers also mobbed bhujia baron Prabhu Shankar Agarwal who rushed to the Singur factory from Kolkata after getting a tip off. "We can't wash the raw jute in our ponds. They are all stinking. This is due to the untreated discharge from the factory. Worse, the untreated water is flowing to the nearby Saraswati river. This can't go on. We have been telling this since long, but the factory managers aren't paying heed," said Shiblal Parui of Ghanashyampur.
Agarwal was taken aback with the complaint. "I wonder how a jhaal chana factory can damage farmland. We don't use groundwater. We bring water from outside. The water is discharged after washing the dal," Agarwal said. But there were issues more than one. The local Baruipara-Paltagarh upapradhan Ashok Das complained that the factory is not abiding by the rules. "You didn't bother to take permission from the panchayat over the construction of sheds. You took permission for one and have built three," Das said. Feeling enccouraged, Archana Das who has been working in the factory on a daily basis said: "We have been hearing that factory will absorb us since long. But now we see that people from Jharkhand and Bihar are being brought in."
Initially, Agarwal tried to sort out the matter in a meeting with the panchayat representation on Friday. When the meeting failed, the factory owner told the media with folded hands that he would shift the factory elsewhere. "We will move out of this place. We are not discharging polluted water," said Agarwal. But the veiled threat was of no use to disperse the crowd. "We will come again tomorrow. We have nothing against the factory. But the owner should stop discharging filthy water that is doing harm to the neighbouring farmland," said the panchayat upapradhan.