Do anything to ensure return of Tatas to Bengal: Industries minister Tapas Roy
The Bengal Government would go any distance to bring the Tatas to the State, Industries Minister Tapas Roy has said. Roy, who had led a delegation of State Government officials to Mumbai on Thursday, said that he would have held the feet of Ratan Tata — “in any case he was much older than me in age” — had he been alive today. “Had Mr Ratan Tata been alive today, I would have even held his feet to request him to return to Bengal,” reiterating that the then land movement led by former Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee forcing the banishment of a fully developed Tata Nano (car) from Singur in 2008 was a colossal blunder.
Roy’s statement is in sync with a sustained effort by the Suvendu Adhikari Government to reach out to the investors, including Tatas, Birlas and others, to invest in Bengal “to restore it to its original position in the top where we belonged years ago.”
Bengal Government has to pay the Tata group a compensation of Rs 765 crore in the wake of its forced abandonment of the Singur project. “The previous Governments have left a debt burden of `8 lakh crore… we will also have to repay the Tatas the compensation… still our Chief Minister is dreaming of bringing industry back to the State… we will make Bengal an industrialised State by 2031… a draft industrial policy is already there and will be unveiled by the middle of August,” the minister said adding talks were on with the Mitsubishi group too.
“It is not the question of any ego or something like that… we are in power today, and we want the industries back in Bengal, and we will do it at any cost,” State BJP president Samik Bhattacharya said.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari once again iterated his strong intentions to ensure an economically strong State in three years. “We will become a financially strong state within 2-3 years… we will hand over land to at least 25 industries within a month,” he said.
Announcing that he would lay the foundation stone of a Rs 4,000 crore steel plant in Purulia district, Adhikari said that the administration would not allow any extortion racket to thrive in the State.
“Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has expressed keen interest in textile and industries … she has seen the high-quality of products woven by our weavers … she is coming here” in the last week of August but “for that we need a business-friendly atmosphere.”
“For the past 50 years or so Bengal has fallen behind because of hooliganism and extortion raj that will not be tolerated any more… you may have seen the Government’s attitude… There will be no extortion or hooliganism, syndicates, cut-money; now we are determined to ensure a business-friendly environment,” Adhikari said.
