The Hindu Business Line : Bengal Govt to prepare status report on land use

The numbers
Sixty-two per cent of the land in the State was agricultural land, one per cent waste land and 13 per cent forest land.
New townships were developing and there were 226 municipalities, which too were expanding.
The demand for land for setting up industrial units too was rising.

THE CHIEF MINISTER of West Bengal, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, and the Chairman and Managing Director, Bharti Enterprises, Mr Sunil Bharti Mittal, at a seminar on `Why Not Bengal' organised by the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation in Kolkata on Saturday. - A. Roy Chowdhury

Kolkata , Dec. 2

West Bengal is preparing a status report on land use in the State , according to the Chief Minister, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.

"We have constituted a land use board to identify how much of the State's land can be made available for industrialisation and urbanisation and hopefully the findings of the board will be ready within the next few months," Mr Bhattacharjee said while addressing a seminar on `Why Not West Bengal' organised jointly by the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation and Kolkata Consular Corps.

The Chief Minister indicated that 62 per cent of the land in the State was agricultural land, 1 per cent wasteland and 13 per cent forest land. "We cannot ignore agriculture because food security is important," he said. But it was also true that urbanisation was growing, new townships were developing and there were 226 municipalities, which too were expanding. The demand for land for setting up industrial units too was rising. "We are therefore preparing a full map on the availability and probable use of land," he observed.

Allaying fear that trade unions might act as hurdles to industrialisation of the State, Mr Bhattacharjee said "We are also involving them to decide what was good for the State and its people". For the first time, the productivity norms were being introduced in several industries, he said.

The Chief Minister also released a book, Doing Business in West Bengal, outlining the policies, incentives and facilities.

Mr Sunil Mittal, Chairman, Bharti Group, said that his group was looking forward to West Bengal for participating in the State's agriculture and horticulture projects.

He felt alternative cropping could also be one option suggesting that traditional inhibitions about contract farming, protected cultivation should be abandoned just as the earlier reservations of many people about IT, telecom and computers made no sense today.

Emphasising the need for cold chain and cold trucking system in the country, he pointed out that 40 million tonnes of fruits and vegetable were wasted every year because of lack of preservation facilities.

Mr Pranab Mukherjee, Union Minister for External Affairs, said the economy was on a path of sustainable growth and achieving 10 per cent growth was in the realm of reality. The Tenth Plan would end with an average growth of 8 per cent, likely to be 9 per cent in the Eleventh Plan.

Major role

West Bengal, he felt, would have a key role to play towards promoting the Union Government's Look East Policy and the second summit of BIMSTEC would be held in India from February 8, with the focus on the promotion of trade, transport, tourism, communication, energy and fisheries among the countries concerned. The trade with Nathu La too was expected to rise, he said.

In a vibrant democracy like India, the Centre and States may differ on various issues but the differences should not lead to negativism, he added.

Mr Nirupam Sen, West Bengal Minister for Commerce & Industry, stated that till September , Rs 2,000 crore worth of investments in 87 projects materialised as compared with Rs 2,230 crore of investments in 2005. He indicated that another Rs 8,000 crore of investments in 65 projects were in various stages of implementation.

Ms Colleen Litkenhaus, Deputy Assistant Secretary, US Department of Commerce, Mr Thierry Antinori, Director, Lufthansa German Airlines, Mr Henry Jardine, US Consul General in Kolkata, also addressed the seminar.

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