Behrampore, April 29: Nasiruddin Mondal worked 11 hours a day and earned only about Rs 2,500 a year if the rain was adequate, the sun was right and the soil permitted.

Four bighas of farmland did not provide the Mondals ? three brothers and their families ? with enough to eat.

Around this time last year, a fellow villager in Nadia’s Karimpur told Nasiruddin that “big factories” were coming up in Murshidabad. A few days later, the 34-year-old farmer left his home and his piece of the earth with his wife and 10-year-old son.

He has no regrets. As security supervisor at the site of the Sagardighi power plant, Nasiruddin works for seven hours a day, six days a week, and pockets Rs 3,000 at the end of the month. He has rented a room in Behrampore town and travels 30 km to Sagardighi for work.

Murshidabad is witness- ing a spurt in industrial activ-ity and there are several thousands like Nasiruddin who have come over from neighbouring Nadia, Birbhum and Malda in search of work.

Once completed, the Sagardighi plant, being built on 200 acres, will generate 2,100 mw. In Farakka, work has begun on a 500-mw unit and a Rs 100-crore cement factory.

The last time the district witnessed such a flurry of activity was some three decades ago when the National Thermal Power Corporation’s plant and barrage were set up in Farakka.

Sahajad Hossain, 25, the son of a retired Farakka Barrage employee, became a graduate four years ago. He is job-less still but hopes there would be opportunities when recruitment begins for the new unit. “Local youths will surely get preference,” he says.

If Sahajad had met Nasiruddin, he would have received a pep talk. “Murshidabad is looking up. We’re all happy? so many people will get jobs,” says Nasiruddin.

When he moved to Beh- rampore last year, he had heard that the new companies would need a few thousand security personnel during cons-truction.

“I was lucky. A relative introduced me to a man who was supplying security guards to the site. I joined as a supervisor for a salary of Rs 2,500 a month. I got a Rs 500 raise recently,” he adds, the grin testifying to his claim to a happy life.

Many youths are enquiring when recruitment would begin at Farakka, says Moinul Haque, the local MLA and Congress candidate for the May 3 elections.

Both the Left Front and the Opposition are trumpeting the projects in their campaigns across Murshidabad. The front is claiming credit for the Sagardighi plant, the Congress for the Farakka unit and both parties for the cement factory.

“Sagardighi is going to be the biggest state-run power plant in Bengal. Vote for us for more industry,” the CPM candidate from Sagardighi, Parikshit Let, is telling voters.

Haque claims the new unit at Farakka and the cement factory became a reality only thanks to the efforts of defence minister Pranab Mukherjee.