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`Talks with IOC on Haldia Petro at advanced stage'

Our Bureau

NEW DELHI, Nov. 30

THE West Bengal Government is expecting a major breakthrough in Indian Oil's participation in the Haldia Petrochemicals project, for which discussions are at a very advanced stage. The participation of the public sector oil giant will be on conditions of not bifurcating the petrochemicals company into two separate companies.

This was stated by the West Bengal Chief Minister, Mr Buddhadev Bhattacharya, in his news conference here today.

``Our Finance Minister, Dr Asim Dasgupta, has held discussions with the IOC Chairman and the State Government wants it to participate in this venture in a big way. Today morning I spoke to him and the whole thing will be finalised soon,'' Mr Bhattacharya said.

The State Government, through the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation, is the largest shareholder in Haldia Petrochemicals along with the Chatterjee Group and the Tata Group. The joint sector company had reportedly run into severe financial cr isis, following which its main unit -- the naphtha cracker plant -- had to be closed down.

Mr Bhattacharya said the progress in the downstream units was in keeping with the projections. Already 142 units had come up in the State against a projected 160 for the first year and another 17 in the neighbouring States.

He said that since the Industrial Policy declared by the State Government in 1994, an amount of Rs 20,000 crore had already been invested in the State and another Rs 48,000 crore was in the pipeline. The major industrial houses that were expanding in a b ig way in the State included the Japanese major, Mitsubishi, and the domestic electronics major, Videocon, he said.

The Chief Minister advocated a humanitarian approach to tackling the trade union problem in the State which, because of its militant attitude, had taken its toll on the industrial progress. He said his Government was trying to make the labour understand that unless productivity increased and quality improved, it was not possible to compete in the changed environment. The State had one of the highest literacy levels in the country coupled with highly-skilled human capital.

He said his Government would rely on the motivating route, rather than adopt the prescriptions of the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank. ``The World Bank and the IMF want slave labourers. We don't want slave labourers. We are telling our work force that if your productivity is low it is you who will have the difficulty, and lose out in the competition,'' he said.

Mr Bhattacharya said the work culture in the State should improve and in this direction, plans were afoot to introduce a performance diary for Government employees.