Kolkata, July 30 (IANS) Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) West Bengal president and Rajya Sabha MP Samik Bhattacharya proposed the setting up of a dedicated chemical park in the state at an estimated cost of Rs 1,500 crore. The proposal was recently submitted to Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari.
In his proposal, Bhattacharya identified Singur in Hooghly district as one of the most suitable locations for the proposed chemical park project.
Singur had drawn international attention in 2007 when the Trinamool Congress, then the principal Opposition party in West Bengal, spearheaded a massive agitation against the acquisition of farmland for Tata Motors’ Nano small car project during the late Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee-led Left Front government.
Amid the prolonged and often violent protests, the Tata Group eventually decided to pull out of the project. Then chairman Ratan Tata announced the withdrawal of the Nano plant from Singur, bringing an end to one of the state’s most contentious industrial projects.
Bhattacharya has also identified three other potential locations for the proposed chemical park. These are Haldia in East Midnapore district, Raghunathpur in Bankura district, and Durgapur in West Burdwan district.
In the proposal to Adhikari, Bhattacharya had pointed out that the Union Cabinet, on July 24 this year, had approved the Bhavya Rasayan Scheme, a Rs 3,030 crore Central initiative to establish three dedicated chemical parks across the country, with a central grant of up to Rs. I,000 crore per park against a minimum state contribution of Rs 500 crore on a minimum of 2,000 acres of contiguous, encumbrance-free land.
According to him, this development had brought a rare opportunity for West Bengal to anchor a national-scale chemicals hub with an estimated investment of Rs 1500 crore or more of combined state infrastructure investment, which could be followed by private capital attraction for the project at a later stage.
According to Bhattacharya, the proposed project could create direct employment in construction, plant operations, logistics and ancillary MSMEs. He said it would also generate strong multiplier effects for downstream sectors such as agriculture, textiles, pharmaceuticals, automobiles and electronics, while developing durable plug-and-play industrial infrastructure, including CETP, TSDF, utilities and pipelines, to attract anchor investors and strengthen West Bengal’s position in the national chemicals value chain.
“A statement of intent that West Bengal is open for large-scale industrial investment, at a time when competing states will move quickly to stake their claims,” Bhattacharya pointed out in his proposal to the CM.
Bhattacharya had also suggested the Chief Minister constitute an inter-departmental task force, led by the state commerce & industries department and the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC), to prepare West Bengal’s Challenge Route submission and also direct the WBIDC to prepare an updated land title, encumbrance, and infrastructure-readiness dossier.
The BJP MP had also suggested that Adhikari engage proactively with the Union chemicals and petrochemicals ministry, ahead of the formal guidelines being issued, to ensure West Bengal is positioned to respond swiftly and also earmark the state’s matching contribution in the upcoming budgetary exercise, in consultation with the West Bengal Finance Department.
–IANS
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