The Hindu Business Line : `We cannot go back on Singur'

KEEPING HIS WORD: The Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, at the 152nd annual general meeting of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce & Industry in Kolkata on Tuesday. - A. Roy Chowdhury

Kolkata , Dec. 26

Tata Motors' small car project at Singur will go ahead, and "cannot be rolled back as the word given to Mr Ratan Tata is final and will be kept", said Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Chief Minister of West Bengal, here today. The project site was selected after full consultations with all Opposition leaders with a map of the land area, and it is an "irresponsible opposition" which was now raking up the issue through a needless agitation, he said.

Speaking at the 152nd annual general meeting of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce & Industry (BCCI), Mr Bhattacharjee, said the Tatas selected the Singur site after examining other areas including Kharagpur, as they wanted the plant be located nearer to Kolkata from a logistics point of view.

The Chief Minister said he was still willing to discuss anything with Ms Mamata Banerjee, leader of the Trinamul Congress, including other projects coming up in Bengal, if she calls off the hunger strike, which has now entered the 23rd day. "After giving my final word to Mr Ratan Tata, how can we now back off?" he argued.

Suggesting that the project was bagged after lengthy discussions with the Tatas on various sites, he said "we have always been trying our best" to avoid handing out fertile agricultural land for "industrial purposes". The Singur land set aside for the Tata project, according to him, was thus mapped out in a zigzag manner. Pointing out that today even countries such as Vietnam were attracting more FDI in industry than India, because of developed infrastructure, he said the State Government welcomed SEZs primarily for industry, as an engine for generating employment.

Seeking a clear-cut national SEZ investment policy, he said "we prefer 50 per cent of the land should be kept for industry, with another 25 per cent for infrastructure and 25 per cent for social infrastructure like housing".

Describing the current investment scenario in West Bengal as bright, as the Jindals have decided to set up a large steel plant in Salboni (West Midnapore), the final agreement for which will be signed on January 11, 2007, the Chief Minister said the actual site selection process has already started.

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