The state has received an investment of Rs 2,666 crore from 15 proposals under the newly announced policy to produce and promote ethanol.

“The policy encourages industry to procure broken rice kernels from farmers and produce ethanol, which is gaining popularity as clean bio fuel. Earlier, the broken rice kernels used to get wasted. We have already received 15 proposals amounting to an investment of Rs 2,666 crore in this field,” said state chief secretary HK Dwivedi at Nabanna after the first meeting of the West Bengal Industrial Promotion Board.

The policy was announced by chief minister Mamata Banerjee two weeks ago. The CM-headed West Bengal Industrial Promotion Board today discussed the status of all the existing investment proposals and laid down a roadmap for attracting future proposals.

The Board has decided to set up logistics for high-end IT solutions in the state namely cloud computing, artificial intelligence and data centre. The state government has already come up with a data centre policy and Reliance
group is setting up a data centre in New Town while Hiranandani group has proposed to come up with another data centre park.

Deliberating on the ongoing proposals, Dwivedi said that the state government will issue a Request For Participation (RFP) for developing the deep sea port at Tajpur in East Midnapore soon. “The original location of the port along with 1,200-1,400 acres of adjoining land have been selected for developing the port. We will issue a RFP for this soon. Many global partners have shown interest in the proposed port,” he said.

The port is expected to boost the state economy and the project will draw a total investment of Rs 15,000 crore and generate 25,000 jobs. Next, GAIL’s pipeline gas project for domestic and commercial consumption between Kolkata and Haldia is expected to be ready by 31 March 2024. Under the project, two CNG stations have already become operational and four are at an advanced stage.

Meanwhile, ONGC has begun commercial production of crude oil in Ashoknagar and petroleum exploration license has been given for East Midnapore, Howrah, Hooghly along with North 24 Parganas. The state government has decided to become self-reliant in the poultry and dairy sectors. Currently, egg production in the state is 1,050 crore per year against the demand of 1,450 crore a year.

To meet this gap the government has decided to spend Rs 2,500 crore for developing poultry farms. Also, Bangla Dairy outlets will be set up in all blocks like Haringhata.