South Bengal districts, as the senior British envoy to Bengal found, have got immense potential for a number of collaborative projects to help mutual growth of trade and commerce, especially in the fields of healthcare and education.

“This part of Bengal, as I’ve learnt today during my first fact-finding visit, is having a scale of opportunities to work together in collaboration between Bengal and the United Kingdom more broadly beyond Kolkata in a number of fields like trade sector, skilling, health and education partnership and some other areas as this is having a huge catchment of as many as 7 million people,” said Dr Andrew Fleming, deputy high commissioner, east & northeast India.

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“Asansol Durgapur is now considered as a health hub and it’s very emerging these days. So, they are keen to come here, possibly,” said chief medical officer of health, Asansol, Dr Sheikh Mohammed Yunus, adding, “In the fields of neurology, urology and medical research, we may need better expertise from other countries.” In pre-Covid19 lockdown, a superspecialty hospital in Durgapur received seven teams of cardiac surgeons from Leads, Surrey, Southampton, London where they arrived and underwent practical skill development training in phases.

Dr Satyajit Bose, chairman of the hospital here, said, “They are most welcome here in matters of technical exchange. We’ve got an additional 20 acres of land where a fresh utility will soon be erected within the Aerotropolis here, where we can offer collaboration projects.” Dr Arunangshu Ganguly, chairman of another multispecialty hospital said: “Treatment facilities in our zone are at par with the European standard. In the fields of fundamental research laboratories, we may have some space to accommodate the UK expertise here.”

He added, “If UK is keen to come here, they may invest in the existing healthcare utilities here.” Dr Fleming was keener about the emerging healthcare sector of south Bengal. He said, “Interestingly, it’s the second highest appropriation of land use in this area now. I found we have a lot of scope to join the sector.” The Asansol Durgapur Development Authority has offered 145 acres of premium land to the healthcare industry in Durgapur only.

Dr Fleming inaugurated a manufacturing unit in Barjora, Bankura close to Durgapur that will produce 900 metric tonne components monthly for high speed Metro trains. Dr Fleming said: “This factory will create 150 new jobs.” Tapan Roy, general manager of the project, said, “It’s a joint venture with a British manufacturer.” The Durgapur Steel Plant, an iconic steel maker, was introduced with the help of British technology in the late 1950s.