For Mamata Banerjee, however, this massive political mandate for her second term in the office is clearly in support of her comprehensive economic and social development measures in the state in the last five years for the benefit of the common man and those living below the poverty line. This has strengthened her resolution to do much better in the second term. She has now placed industry on the same priority category as agriculture to ensure a balance in the economic development and address the concerns of employment of young educated persons in the state after they obtain their degrees and certificates from colleges, institutes and universities. Despite severe financial constraints caused mainly by heavy burden of servicing huge debts incurred by her predecessors over the years, her administration has done remarkably well in several areas that touched the heart of the common man as well as the business community. The areas include the state’s rural infrastructure, improved road connectivity, better water supply and sanitation, education at all levels, healthcare and supplies through ration or fair price shops.

With her renewed focus on industry — putting it on par with agriculture in which West Bengal has distinctly performed well compared to other Indian states in terms of both diversity of farm production and higher value addition for farmers — the government has to really work hard to create an environment that is conducive to industrial growth. Finding suitable land for new industry continues to be a challenge. The government is considering various options to tide over the difficulties. The closure of sick units and using their immovable assets to set up new ventures appear to be a viable option.

The takeover of sick units like Dunlop, occupying vast priceless industrial land with best infrastructure connections, and handing them over to well-meaning large new entrepreneurs, preferably multinational corporations that could be trusted with appropriate asset utilization rather than asset stripping, would probably be the best. In the past, the union government had acted in a similar fashion to unlock the vast real estate assets of sick and closed National Textile Corporation (NTC) mills in Mumbai and help build new corporate assets there. The task is not easy. Legal hassles need to be overcome. The court must act fast to free the estates and auction them. The government must make sure that the industrial land is not misused by private land sharks to promote housing.

Few will disagree that the CPM-led Left Front government had no genuinely good industrial policy. It allowed Hindustan Motors, the country’s largest passenger car manufacturing company until the mid-1980s, to work towards shutting down the automobile plant at Uttarpara and allowed its Delhi-based owner to build housing complexes there to make quick bucks before getting out of the business set up by his grandfather with the state government help. The property could have been taken over and given to a willing new automobile manufacturer. Automobile is regarded as an industrial growth engine. A number of foreign automobile plants were set up in water-starved Tamil Nadu. But, none was invited to industrially most suitable West Bengal by the LF government.

Instead, it took a highly questionable step to take over a cluster of plots of an extremely fertile agricultural land from some confused and unwilling farmers at Singur in the Hooghly district for the Tatas to manufacture a new, somewhat experimental, small car, Nano, the work on which had to be finally shut down following agitation by farmers under the leadership of Mamata Banerjee. The project was stopped after she became the State’s chief minister in 2011. The Tatas took the legal resort and the case is being heard in the Supreme Court. West Bengal and its capital Kolkata, a commercial nerve centre for a number of eastern states, can still host a car company or two in places without harming agriculture.

West Bengal, having two integrated steel plants and easy access to coal and other minerals, can still emerge as one of India’s large bases of engineering production. As a former railway minister, Mamata Banerjee, took several steps to increase and develop engineering production for the railways. West Bengal has a number of engineering units that exclusively serve the railways. The SAIL’s Durgapur steel plant has the country’s biggest wheel and axle plant. The West Bengal government is also working to revive the sick tea gardens in the state. It should be possible since the tea consumption growth in India is much in excess of annual tea production rate. Market prices of tea are continuously shooting up. India is also a major importer of cheaper tea from other countries for blending purposes. The proposed deep sea port at Sagar, a possible access to natural gas from Bangladesh, healthier tea gardens, the growth of engineering, chemicals, telecommunications, IT, food processing and readymade garments industries can fulfill the state government’s dream to put West Bengal back to the forefront of industry in due course. (IPA Service)