Chemical hub in Nayachar

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1071126/asp/bengal/story_8593364.asp

Siliguri, Nov. 25: Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today admitted a “mistake” in the way the government went about the proposal to set up a chemical hub in Nandigram.

“Nandigram-ey bhool hoyechhey, aamra shorey eshechhi (We committed mistakes in Nandigram and we have withdrawn). We withdrew though we wanted a chemical hub there like the one thriving in Haldia next door,” the chief minister said at an open session of the CPM’s Darjeeling district conference in Siliguri.

This is the first time the chief minister has spoken on Nandigram at length since November 13, when he tried to justify the violence unleashed by CPM cadres in Nandigram saying the Bhoomi Uchchhed Pratirodh Committee supporters “were paid back in their own coin”.

“Peace is fast returning to Nandigram,” he said today.

Bhattacharjee stressed that there was no alternative to industrialisation for Bengal’s progress because it would “create employment opportunities for thousands of graduates”.

He added: “We wanted a chemical hub in Nandigram where the IOC would have established its plant and there would have been factories for polymer, butadin (he even explained that butadin was an ingredient for rubber) and petrochemical products. But it did not materialise there and we had to shift the hub to Nayachar, where all these factories will come up.”