Calcutta, Jan. 31: Left Front partners today tried to set up roadblocks before the government’s move to relax the rural land ceiling.

If passed, the West Bengal Land Reforms (Amendment) Bill, 2006, would pave the way for acquiring the huge tracts that many special economic zones require.

Forward Bloc, CPI and RSP members of the Assembly select committee examining the bill today raised a string of objections.

The bill empowers the government to relax the land ceiling “to establish an industry, commerce and infrastructure” in addition to the existing exemption for tea gardens, mills and factories.

It allows private investors to hold land above the ceiling against “any permit, lease or licence” and even to “acquire, hold and transfer” it with government permission.

“This would open the floodgates for conversion of farmland and lead to corporate zamindari. The bill fails to clarify what it means by ‘industry’ or ‘commerce’,” said the Bloc’s Haripada Biswas.

He opposed the provision making bargadars (sharecroppers) co-owners of half the land through an agreement with the landowner. The allies feel this is a ploy to speed up land sale, which would ultimately lead to the bargadar’s eviction. Current laws make barga land difficult to sell.

“If the government wants the bargadar to own land, let it set up a land bank to which the owner would sell half his share. The bargadar can then gradually buy off the land from the bank.”

The bill proposes acquisition and transfer of tribal land in exchange for land of equal size “in the vicinity”. The Bloc, arguing that prime plots cannot be traded against cheaper plots of equal area, wants the tribals given land of “equal value” nearby.

The party wants a district-level panel, with farmer’s representatives on it, to monitor land-use conversion in opposition to the proposal to empower district magistrates to regularise all illegal conversion.

The CPI’s Santosh Rana echoed most of this except the last. The RSP’s Amar Choudhury wants farmers’ consent made a must for acquisition.

To placate the allies, the government is thinking of including a clause saying “agri-business and agro-based industry” would get preference.

But the allies suspect this is a ploy to allow “backdoor entry of agri-marketing behemoths like Reliance retail”.

“We will not allow the group to run business in the state,” said Bloc veteran Asoke Ghosh.