No room for big industries: Saugata
Trinamul Congress MP Saugata Roy on Saturday acknowledged it was difficult to set up large industries in the state due to shortage of land. “In the economic and industrial development of Wes Bengal there is no room for big industry because land is a problem here. If you look in the vicinity of Kolkata, the land is fertile. It was fertile land which became the main stumbling block in Singur,” he said.
Mr Roy was addressing a conference organised by a body of cottage and small industries.
Mr Roy even cited the difficulty the state government was facing in setting up a power plant at Katwa in Burdwan. “The NTPC plant is needed for the state but the farmers are not willing to part with such a large volume of land for it. Big ticket industry in the state, therefore, is possible only in West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia,” he said. He, however, himself admitted that industrialists were not keen on investing in these backward districts because of distance and poor infrastructure.
Mr Roy added that the industrial development in the state would have to depend on cottage, small and medium industries. This is not the first time that Mr Roy had made such a statement. In January, he had strongly defended Mamata Banerjee government’s hands-off land policy and asked the industrialists to work under the “existing constraints.”
Mr Roy’s admission about the absence of big industry in the state contradicted the claim often made by the chief minister and industry minister Partha Chatterjee. Ms Banerjee and Mr Chatterjee insist that investment worth thousands of crores are pouring in in the big industry sector. But the ground realities donot support their claim. The state government had organised the annual investment summit Bengal Leads at Haldia in early January with great fanfare. However, it failed to attract any sizeable investment from any top industrial house.
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