The Hindu Business Line : `Infrastructure development key to luring investments'

Without proper infrastructure, investment will never flow into Tripura. It is therefore clear the building of infrastructure will have to be the first priority of the State. In an exclusive interview with Business Line, the Tripura Chief Minister, Mr Manik Sarkar, said that the need of the hour was to be practical about this requirement. An investor would find the State attractive only if capital is adequately circulated and good returns assured, according to Mr Sarkar. Excerpts from the interview:

Bulk of the investments into North East has actually flown into just Assam and Meghalaya. Tripura has barely attracted any investments except in the last few years at your new Bodjungnagar Growth Centre industrial estate. Would you like to comment?

Investments can never come in unless we have a reasonably well developed infrastructure in place. And this naturally has to be our top most priority. We need to think practically here. An investor will come in only if his capital is adequately circulated and proper returns are assured. And this will happen only if infrastructure such as roads and telecom facilities are put in place without any further delay.

If investors come on their own and invest, we welcome it. But we are not going to run after the investors without having the infrastructure in place first. The Left Front government in Tripura came into power with the main aim of eradicating poverty and our State planning efforts are necessarily towards achieving this. As is the case with the planning process for economic development anywhere, we clearly need to identify the poor, especially those living below the poverty line and take this up as a challenge.

As you know, the bulk of the poor in our State live in the villages, and this is where we have started, giving high priority to the land reform process. In agriculture development, we started virtually from zero, when the process was set in motion from January 1978, when the Left came to power. Prior to that, very little land in Tripura was under active cultivation - less than 3 per cent of total land.

We are now concentrating on the basic social indicators like education, health, electricity and of course, food security for our people, in basic things like vegetables, milk, fish, meat etc.

What about value addition in agriculture?

Let us first be self-sufficient in production, then we can think of value addition for reaping greater benefits. Self- sufficiency is our first priority and we are working towards this. In the meanwhile, if investments come into areas like agri-processing, we welcome it.

What about small industries?

Small industries are attracted to Tripura, even in core sectors like secondary steel products, in spite of raw material constraints essentially because of a stable, investor-friendly government and also an effective incentives package for new industries. The market, especially the North East if taken as a whole, with Bangladesh thrown in can be an attractive proposition form potential investors in Tripura.

We have a cement unit too at our Growth Centre, because of the upswing in construction activity (for infrastructure development) in Tripura now. I feel our disadvantageous position location wise (surrounded by Bangladesh on all three sides) may eventually turn into an advantageous one if proper road and rail links are put in place.

What about the natural resources?

We have large areas under high quality bamboo, and we are growing high quality rubber in large plantation areas identified by the Rubber Board. We also have natural gas that can be converted into wealth for our people. What more do we need, except a leg up for basic infrastructure needs from the Centre. We also have fruits and vegetables in abundance, especially commodities like pineapples and jackfruit, counted among the best in the world qualitatively. Our first requirement is speedy infrastructure development, especially roads and telecom facilities, and everything else will follow soon thereafter.

What is the position with regard to the Agartala rail link with Akhoura in Bangladesh?

Work is progressing well, and should be completed soon.

What about the work on NH 44 linking Agartala to Assam through a first class national highway?

Well, the PM has announced it, but nothing much has happened so far. It is expected to come up on a BOT basis.

Can you name three priority areas for Tripura to speed up industrialisation of the State?

Infrastructure, education and health. We also need to improve our trade relations with Bangladesh, especially at the sub- regional level, as Bangladesh has a favourable trade balance with Tripura, while having a huge trade deficit (almost 10:1) with India as a whole.

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