Within six months, Singur will come a full circle: a transformation from agriculture to industry, from rural voters in a panchayat to urban dwellers of a municipality or corporation, courtesy the Tata Motors' small-car project. The project is coming up on land that was part of five mouzas from three gram panchayat areas.

The Tata Motors' project — work on which began last year after a controversial land acquisition by the government — is scheduled to be ready by August this year and will roll out its first Nano car by October.

More importantly, the project has set off an urbanisation boom in nearby areas with land prices shooting up. Village tracks are turning into roads, and stacks of bricks, piles of sand and stone chips line almost every road and lane in the area.

On Wednesday, 1,70,000 voters of Singur block will vote and elect 16 gram panchayats, one panchayat samiti and three Zilla Parishad members as part of the second round of voting for the three-tier panchayat elections in West Bengal.

The plan to turn Singur into a municipality or corporation is still at the political level, but the district administration has already sounded out the outgoing panchayat samiti.

“This is the last panchayat election,” said Ranjit Mondal, the chairman of the outgoing samiti. He added, “We will begin the process (of conversion into a urban civic body) after six months.”

In West Bengal, an area can opt to move up the ladder if it fulfils three conditions. First, if the non-agricultural land adds up to more than half the total area. Second, if there are over 750 families dwelling per square kilometre. Third, if there is scope for revenue income.

Shekhar Roy, the sub-divisional officer, pointed out that three or four big factories have already come up in the area apart from the Tata Motors project. “Once they are fully functional, the government has to take the necessary steps to urbanise the area,” Roy said.

According to plan, 11 gram panchayats consisting of 88 mouzas — each of roughly a 1,000 acres — will be included in the new municipality or corporation. Singur Block I has a total of 130 mouzas organised under 16 gram panchayats.

The Tata Motors project area occupies nearly a 1,000 acres, including the land allotted for the ancillaries. Asok Bhattacharya, the minister for urban development, said any decision to convert the area would be announced only after the elections were over. “There is no doubt that urbanisation will follow industry,” the minister said.

Conversion into a municipality or corporation will mean higher taxes for residents. On the other hand, the government will have to spend much more to build infrastructure like piped water supply and a sewage system. The CPI(M)'s Hooghly district committee has been discussing the conversion issue over the last six months, ever since the installation of a power sub-station for the Tata project and waterlogging following landfilling.

“The Party has already discussed the issue, and we will move after the vote,” said CPI(M) district committee member Dibakar Das. “There may be some protest because taxes will go up, but there is no alternative to a municipality,” Das said.

Ranjit Mondal said that while a municipality is one option, they are also thinking of a higher status like a corporation. “A corporation gets more developmental funds,” Mondal pointed out.

Meanwhile, the trigger for all this, the small-car project itself, is a hub of activity, with 2,500 people working in two shifts. Most of the civil work is complete and equipment is being installed in the paint shop, the engine and the welding shop. Local boys enrolled in the industrial training institutes are now being trained. Work has also begun at some of the ancillary units.

The boundary walls are plastered with election posters of the CPI(M) and the Opposition Trinamool Congress, which had opposed the acquisition of farmland for the project. However, the slogans have not a word about the Tata small-car project — either for or against it.

The CPI(M) controls 11 of the 16 gram panchayats at present, together with 32 of the 44 seats in the middle-tier panchayat samiti and all three seats in the Zilla Parishad.