As visiting West Bengal is still not conducive for many countries due to the Covid pandemic situation, chief minister Mamata Banerjee today asked to prioritise domestic industry in this year’s Bengal Global Business Summit (BGBS) and asked industry captains to visit other states as brand ambassadors to promote Bengal as an ideal destination for industry.

“West Bengal is the future destination for industry. Our primary target is industrial growth, infrastructure creation and employment generation. In the last 10 years, we got an investment of Rs 4.5 lakh crore. We could not hold BGBS for two years due to the pandemic. Although many countries want to attend our summit but are unable to do so due to the pandemic situation. So, priority should be given to domestic industry this time,” she said at the State Industrial Promotional Board meeting with heads of industries and chambers of commerce at Nabanna.

Miss Banerjee asked Bengal-based industrialists to form teams comprising four to five members each and visit different states as ambassadors and share their firsthand experience in doing business in Bengal as well as promote the state as a destination for industry. Seeking suggestions from industries on improving the ease of doing business here, Miss Banerjee said principal secretaries have to be much more effective and asked state chief secretary HK Dwivedi to take action against those departments who fail to meet deadlines.

Issuing a stern message on expediting work, Miss Banerjee set a two-month deadline for allotment of land in industrial plots. “I have heard that often there are delays in allotting land in the industrial plots. This would not be tolerated. There should be no dilly-dallying in land allotment,” she said, adding that 33 private parties have expressed interest in state-aided industrial parks of which 12 have already been approved and remaining are in process. This has a total investment of Rs 31,000 crore and 3.52 lakh job opportunities.

She stressed on providing fire licenses on time and said that all local bodies should charge the same fee for issuing No Objection Certificates. Deliberating on the upcoming industrial projects and scopes for investment in various sectors, Miss Banerjee said: “We have some big projects in the pipeline which will change the entire scenario of our state. Our proposed Tajpur greenfield port will transform the maritime sector of India and will have an investment of Rs 15000 crore. Next, Deocha Pachami coal mining project will be the face of Bengal and solve the power problem for the next 100 years,” she said.

A total of 203 people who gave their plots for the Deocha Pachami coal mining project were handed over compensation cheques and appointment letters on the occasion. State has planned three industrial corridors from Dankuni namely DankuniRaghunathpur, DankuniKalyani and Dankuni-Haldia and WBIDC has received proposal for 1500 acre of land, she said adding that oil exploration of ONGC is underway in Ashoknagar in North 24 Parganas that has scope for job creation.

Among other upcoming projects include a cable landing station in Digha, footwear park on 62 acres in Bantala and over 200 industrial parks on 10,000 acres of land. Miss Banerjee announced that Rs 5,000 crore will be invested in the next three years and create 50,0000 jobs. A total of 400 Bangla Dairy outlets have become operational along with four commercial poultry parks. A company from Slovenia has recently evinced interest in the manufacturing sector, she added.

On the occasion, Miss Banerjee inaugurated ‘Bangla I-Cloud’ ~ an initiative towards paperless governance and the State Integrated Portal for Ease of Doing Business. Miss Banerjee, who has coined the name and designed the logo for Bangla I-Cloud said it is a digital locker for all kinds of documents in digital form namely birth and death certificates, ration cards and others. Again, an entrepreneur can access online services of 15 departments from the integrated portal and thereby save him/her in doing business in a hassle-free manner. While BGBS will be held in Kolkata, exhibitions will be held in the districts to promote and market exclusive products.