Mamata Banerjee vows to make plans for Tata public

Clearing the air on the purported “exclusive” invite to her from the Tatas, and any possible deal with them in future, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has said everything would be made public.

“Replying to them (Tatas) was a courtesy. Also, as announced earlier, they are free to set up industry on 600 acres in Singur. However, the details of the deal would be made public so as to have complete transparency,” Mamata has said. Putting the details of the deal in public domain was one of the major demands during her Singur agitation. As her first decision, Mamata announced to return 400 of the 1,000 acres acquired by the erstwhile government in Bengal to farmers. She also said that Tatas were free to set up any industry on the remaining 600 acres.

The new government would like to have transparency unlike the last CPI(M)-led government, the Trinamool leader said. “I have asked the industry minister to publicly release the previous deal shortly, let him go through the papers first,” she told reporters at Writers’.

Incidentally, her announcement to make the previous deal over the 1,000 acres public will assume significance amidst fresh controversy created by CPI(M)’s former land reforms minister Rezzak Mollah.