Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has once again iterated that land will not be a constraint if the investors want to put their money in Bengal.
Insisting that the State was on the threshold of industrial resurgence thanks to the infrastructure development projects being undertaken by her Government, the CM who on Thursday inaugurated the new terminal building of the State’s first aerotropolis at Andal in Burdwan some, 150 km from Kolkata, said, “There is no alternative to infrastructure development and our Government is concentrating on that” reminding how such projects would contribute towards job creation.
The multi-thousand crore aerotropolis project that was started several years ago by the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee Government before occasionally hitting land hurdles was christened by the Chief Minister after revolutionary Bangla poet and music composer Kazi Najrul Islam.
It would cater to the twin industrial cities of Durgapur and Asansol apart from the proposed industrial projects of Purulia, Bankura, Burdwan and Birbhum. In fact Banerjee said her Government would invest Rs 10,000 crore for development of the aerotropolis.
Banerjee also inaugurated a helicopter service from the aerotropolis that would connect the area with other industrial regions of Haldia, Dhandbad and Jamshedpur.
The Chief Minister who announced her Government’s decision to start coal-mining in the newly found coal blocks in Birbhum district said soon Bengal would be on the top of the country’s industrial map.
The area has a reserve of about 300 crore tonnes of high-quality coal. Top Industries Department officials said that the Centre was in the process of giving clearance to start the mining project which would require the State to team up with specialised foreign firms experienced in digging coal from deep beneath the ground.
While in the normal case coal is found between 150 and 600 feet, but in the case of Birbhum the block is located between 900 and 1200 feet.