New things are happening in Bengal: Mamata Banerjee
The summit was fruitful and overwhelming, said the West Bengal CMAhead of the Vibrant Gujarat Summit next week, the West Bengal government’s efforts to attract investments into the state through from the two-day Bengal Global Business Summit 2015 that concluded yesterday saw investments worth around 2.43 lakh crore. A pleased Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said that new things are happening in Bengal and it will set a new trend in the country. Mamata Banerjee highlighted that it is notable that most of the investment to West Bengal was in social sectors. Calling he summit a grand success, she said, “Investments were not only sought and received for brick-and-mortar industries but for the crucial human resource development sector.” As promised, political differences did not come in the way of development of Bengal. And perhaps, political differences helped West Bengal garner several projects that were announced by the Central government, mostly in infrastructure development. Both Arun Jaitley, Finance Minister, and Nitin Gadkari, Ministry of Shipping, attended the summit along with representatives from 20 countries, including from UK, Japan, USA, Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, China, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Spain, Belarus, Czech Republic, Israel, Korea, and Luxembourg. The Ministry of Shipping signed projects worth Rs.41,600 crore, including for a deep sea port Bhor Sagar (New Dawn) at Sagar Islands, with investment of Rs.12,000 crore (around $2 billion). Gadkari also announced that the government will provide Rs.1,200 crore for the development of a second port in Haldia, and Rs.4,500 crore for the development of the Haldia-Varanasi waterway. The Steel Authority of India limited (SAIL) has also announced projects worth Rs.40,000 crore in West Bengal and the state government has signed an MoU worth Rs.300 crore with Port Trust. NTPC has said that it will invest Rs.20,000 crore in various projects in West Bengal in coming years. Several companies pledged to invest Rs.15,000 crore in West Bengal for the development of Smart Cities. The West Bengal government says that the investments will help create one crore jobs in the next three years, of which 20,000 jobs will be in TCS alone. Mamata Banerjee has constituted a dedicated Core Committee headed by the Minister-in-Charge of Commerce & Industries Department supported by the Chief Secretary, West Bengal, to review the projects announced at the summit. The next Bengal Global Summit will be held on January 8-9, 2016 at Kolkata.
This article was published on January 9, 2015.
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