The district magistrate of West Burdwan, S. Ponnambalam has been preparing a status report of the idle land of seven closed industries, totalling about 2,100 acres and will submit it to the state commerce and industry department shortly. Recently, there had been frequent visits by the top officials of the state commerce and industry department along with local officials like DM, ADM and land reforms department in West Burdwan district .

Once upon a time, the industrial region of West Burdwan district ~ Asansol and Durgapur ~ were regarded as the Ruhr of India and was the biggest zone of heavy industries in the country after Independence, but since the late eighties many factories started becoming sick due to various reasons and slowly shut down over the next two decades.

Huge tracts of industrial land are now lying idle in Asansol and Durgapur, in a state where the government is scouting for land to set up fresh investments. The status report relating to seven closed factories – Hindustan Cables Limited (HCL), Rupnarayanpur, Cycle Corporation of India, Sen Raleigh, Hindustan Fertiliser Corporation Limited (HFCL), Durgapur, MAMC (Mining and Allied Machinery Corporation), Durgapur, Bharat Opthalmic Glass Limited (BOGL), Kesoram Rayon Industries, Kulti, Hindustan Pilkington Glass Factory, Asansol, with a total area of 2095.42 acres of land is being prepared. The current legal status of the idle industrial land is also updated in the report. It is still not clear whether the state government will take over this vast industrial land and set up an industrial land bank, but it the commerce and industry department is keen to get back the land and set up fresh industries in the region.

Hindustan Cables Limited (HCL) has 947 23 acres of land, out of which 511.04 acres are idle and unused land, while the old factory is constructed on 332.4 acres of land, and other land including water bodies etc are on 48.85 acres of land. There is no legal dispute and the land belongs to the central public sector body. Hindustan Fertiliser Corporation of India (HFCL), in Durgapur has a total of 541 acres of land, which includes the closed plant on 73 acres of land, 468 idle and unused land. This land also belonged to the CPSU and has no legal issues. There have also been no encroachments. For MAMC Limited in Durgapur, out of its total 193.67 acres of land, the old factory is set up on 40.27 acres and 153.4 acres are lying idle.

There is no legal dispute and the land belongs to a consortium of three CPSUs. Bharat Opthalmic Glass Limited (BOGL), Durgapur, has a total area 46.51 acres, out of which 21.57 acres are vacant and 9.94 acres are covered by the old plant. There is no legal issue and the land belongs to the CPSU. Kesoram Rayon Industries, Kulti has 71.43 acres of land, out of which the factory is set up on 5.54 acres and 43.14 acres is lying idle. It also has ponds on 6.65 acres and about 16 acres of land is encroached. A case is registered in West Bengal Land Reforms and Tenancy Tribunal. The land belonged to the Birla Group. Out of 56.48 acre of total land belonging to the Hindustan Pilkington Glass factory, in Ushagram, Asansol, 13.23 acres have factory structures, 19.46 acres are lying idle, 19 acres have ponds, while 4.39 acres of land has been encroached.

The land belongs to a private company and a case is registered in the high court. For Cycle Corporation of India (CCI), Sen Raleigh, Asansol, out of a total 239.1 acres of land, 178.42 acres of land are lying idle. The factory, presently dilapidated, was constructed on 40.86 acres of land. There are encroachments on 3.02 acres of land and 16.81 acres of land have ponds. The land belonged to a private company and a writ petition is pending in the high court. Charanjit Singh, INTTUC leader of Hindustan Cables said that the trade union welcomes any fresh investments as it will boost the socio economic scenario of Rupnarayanpur.

Ashim Chatterjee, INTUC president of MAMC said that he has been fighting for revival and reopening of MAMC since the past twenty years and at this juncture any positive move from the Mamata Banerjee government is welcome. The West Bengal government has already given its nod to a proposal to set up an industrial estate on 193 acres of unused land of Dhakeswari Cotton Mill in Burnpur of West Burdwan. The West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) has acquired the land for the purpose. These vast tracts of unused land, once acquired, will give a very big boost to industrial development in the state, experts feel.