Agencies
 
KOLKATA, Sep 7: The two-year-old Singur crisis was resolved late on Sunday night as a land-for-land agreement was reached at a face-to-face meeting between West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee here, capping three days of hard-nosed bargaining.

As part of the agreement, the government would return the land of all those farmers who have not been compensated, most of which are within the premises of the Tata Motors Nano car factory in Singur, Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi, who brokered the talks between the two sides, told mediapersons at Raj Bhawan.

Mamata, in turn, announced the immediate withdrawal of her party's two-year-old agitation on the issue and the fortnight-long sit-in demonstration at the factory site.

A committee would be set up to work out modalities of returning the land of the farmers who have not got the compensation within a week during which government ordered suspension of all construction work in the nearby ancillary units of the car factory, Gandhi said reading from a prepared text of the understanding reached between the two sides.

The Governor announced the breakthrough in the impasse in the presence of the Chief Minister and the Trinamool Congress chief at the end of a series of of meetings including the first-ever talks between Bhattacharjee and Banerjee.

The talks, marked by twists and turns, was salvaged from the verge of collapse on Sunday evening following a last-minute demand by Mamata, after a consensus was reached earlier, that land of all farmers acquired of vendors of ancillary units of the Tata Motors Nano car plant at Singur be returned to farmers.

The sudden near-breakdown of talks was, however, resolved at the initiative of Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi, who has been chairing the talks since Friday.