Nandigram takes its toll on grand industry agenda

Nandigram takes its toll on grand industry agenda

http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?clid=6&id=181807&usrsess=1

Uday Basu
KOLKATA, April. 22: However much Left intellectuals unabashedly praise Mr Buddhadeb Bhattcharjee’s industrialisation policy, investors or industrialists are no longer seen on the corridors of Writers’ Buildings as they were on the Nandigram pre-fiasco days.
As Mr Bhattacharjee sent the message across that precious land for industries was there for the asking, industrialists at home and abroad were making a beeline for the state secretariat and the entire Writers’ Buildings seemed to have been squeezed into three rooms ~ the offices of the chief minister, industries minister Mr Nirupam Sen and the principal secretary of his department, Mr Sabyasachi Sen.
All other departments virtually became non-existent. Even the land and land reforms department, which was to have a big say on transfer of land for industrialisation, was reduced to a non-entity. Prospective investors shuttled from the offices of the industries minister and his principal secretary to that of the chief minister.
But, as the backlash at Nandigram and public fury against police brutality there made national headlines, the movement of investors and industrialists on the corridors of the state secretariat went down to a faint trickle.
During the past fortnight only two such groups of investors visited the chief minister and the industries minister and both of them were desperately trying to salvage whatever remained of the promised land. On 12 April Salim Group showcased before the CM its technology-cum-equity partner, the Jong Shen group of China after it had been nudged by the industries department to immediately begin work for the Mahabharat motorcycle factory at Uluberia for which it had got land over a year ago.
This project was becoming a scandal of sorts, as when the state government had drawn flak from all quarters for its shoddy distribution of land, not a brick was laid on the land allotted for the factory. The Chinese manufacturer promised to bring in several component manufacturers to set up shop at Howrah if they are given land. The next day it was the turn of Mr Venugopal Dhoot, chairman, Videocon, to meet the chief minister to extract 100 acres of prized land within the city limits for a project which has the precondition that it enjoys all the advantages of a major metropolis.
The chief minister conceded the demand after Mr Dhoot made it clear that the Andhra Pradesh government had offered him land at Hyderabad for the project with initial investment worth Rs 1,000 crore. Mr Bhattacharjee was, of course, loath to disclose the location of the land. The very next day the chief minister received a US delegation at his chamber. But that was more of a courtesy session when the CM was invited to visit the USA and the delegation expressed its keenness to invest in the state.