People's Democracy

Bengal LF Government Determined To Overcome

Obstacles On The Path Of Development

B Prasant

THE Bengal Left Front government shall overcome obstacles on the path of development, and it shall take the people into confidence as it has always done. Thus said Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee recently, while he was addressing an executive committee of the FICCI. Buddhadeb also dealt in some detail with the issues involved in the process of industrialisation and land acquisition.

There was no doubt about the Bengal government getting ahead with the automotive factory at Singur, he said. By 2008, the first of the small cars shall roll out of the factory assured the CPI(M) leader. The entrepreneurs of the auto motive factory were ready to move away to Uttarakhand because of the tax concessions they would receive there. The state government had to initiate dialogue and persuaded the management to come to Bengal and Singur was the place that was chosen for the setting up of a factory that would crate a big number of direct as well as indirect jobs.

REHABILITATION

The largest bulk of the kisans and landowners at Singur, Buddhadeb said, ‘have already consented to hand over land for the factory and the process includes but a handful of bargadars and khet mazdoors who have proved recalcitrant.’ ‘We’, said the chief minister, ‘have communicated to them the hard fact that they would stand to benefit greatly if they chose to enjoy much bigger financial benefits that will accrue if they allowed the factory to come up, than otherwise.’

The standard and style of life itself will change for them once the factory gets going and a township is formed. Whatever is the whine and carp of the opposition and their patrons, said Buddhadeb, the Bengal LF government would not be moved from the task of setting up of the automotive factory at Singur. The aim is generation of employment and development of the economy.

Nandigram was another kind of development pointed out Buddhadeb in a frank manner. There, said the chief minister, the opposition was successful in befooling and misleading some people with success, before ‘the notion of a chemical hub with its attendant benefits could be explained properly to the local populace by us.’

CHEMICAL HUB

Another spot has been subsequently identified for the setting up of the chemical hub, and that is the grass-covered sand strip near to the mouth of the river Ganges, called Nayachar. The final agreement with the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has been done. The IOC is the chief promoter of the project. The union government has been requested to give the state government a bit of an extension of the period set earlier for the coming up of the chemical hub. The hub when it would come up would benefit the state greatly economically as well as financially.

Noting that there was a steady stream of investments and investment proposals in the manufacturing sector in Bengal, the chief minister recalled that six big and medium-sized steel industries would see the light of the day, sooner rather than later. The technical education department has been instructed to train up the local populace through Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) so that they could be absorbed, as many of them as possible, in the units that would be set up.

The largest steel industry coming up at Salboni in Midnapore west shall displace 975 families and the entrepreneurs concerned have arranged to provide representative employment to the families in the project. This was not something the automotive factory owners at Singur could do, since 12,000 families were involved.

ROLE OF THE STATE SECTOR

For the people who have allowed the state government to acquire their land (at a very good rate, Buddhadeb reminded the FICCI members), land was everything. Thus, the Left Front government must think about the process and implementation of rehabilitation. There is a school of thought amongst the corporate world, Buddhadeb underscored, who would rather see bargaining going on between the land owners and the entrepreneurs without the intervening and pro-people role of the state government in the instances of industrial projects coming up in Bengal.

This notion was not quite right, said the chief minister who went on to point out that in such cases the issues of legitimate land prices and compensation-rehabilitation would be severely and adversely affected. The Left Front government would have none of it.

Dealing with issues concerning the Special Economic Zones or SEZs, Buddhadeb said that the Congress-run UPA government was just rushing towards an inchoate number of SEZs without much thought about viability, utility, and effect. Unhealthy competition is going on amongst the state governments as to who could get how many SEZs by pressurising the central government. Bengal would not be party of this rat race. The Left has already proposed amendments to the SEZ rules and regulations. Especially it must be ensured that bulk of the land allocated for SEZs must never be used for real estate purposes.

The chief minister also dealt briefly at this meeting with such issues as strengthening of the state sector, controlling private sector retail trading, ports, airports, and extension of the Kolkata metro, plus a proposal for elevated mass transit system for the metropolis. The FICCI leadership probed the attractions the state had for investors and called Bengal a rapidly emerging state in India.