Return to West Bengal, plenty jobs now, says CM Suvendu Adhikari
Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on Monday appealed to the migrant workers to return to the State, assuring them of “ample job opportunities” in the changed “double engine” scenario.
The Chief Minister, who was reportedly flying off to Delhi for a meeting with 20 NCPI MPs who had earlier broken away from the Trinamool Congress, said, “I appeal to all the migrant workers to return to Bengal as there will be ample job opportunities because we are passing through an “Amrit Kaal of development (an era of endless development).”
Adhikari earlier announced a compensation of `5 lakh each for the kin of those 11 Bengali workers who died in the tunnel collapse in Sikkim. Besides, Rs 4 lakh was to come from the Sikkim government, Rs 5 lakh from NHPC, Rs 5 lakh from the construction company where the workers were employed, and Rs 2 lakh from the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund.
The Chief Minister said that an ice-cream factory was coming up in North Bengal — alongside the one in South Bengal — and soon a number of closed tea gardens would open up, restoring and creating new job opportunities. He said that the State was encouraging Makhana cultivation in Malda district besides providing special impetus to pineapple, maize and premium Tulai Panji rice production in the North Bengal area. The Chief Minister had a few days ago inaugurated an extended section of Shyam Steel, which would invest Rs 15,000 crore for the purpose.
Meanwhile, in a parallel development, the State Government had given directions to all the District Magistrates concerned to hasten up the Kolkata-Varanasi expressway project, which had hit a roadblock during the previous TMC Government.
According to sources, State Chief Secretary Manoj Kumar Agarwal had instructed the respective DMs of six districts through which the expressway would pass to take necessary steps to facilitate work. The road is to pass through six districts of Kolkata, Howrah, Hooghly, West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia, cutting short the travel time to about 8 hours from the present 12 hours.
