West Bengal: Didi means business

West Bengal is now 9th in the DPIIT ease of doing business index, ahead of even Gujarat

It took more than a decade and three back-to-back assembly wins for the Mamata Banerjee government to roll out the red carpet again for the Tatas. Mamata came to power on the back of a farmers’ movement in Nandigram-Singur against the land acquisition for the Tata Nano factory (2006-08), and it hasn’t been easy for her government to shed the anti-industry image it acquired in the bargain.

Even after all the talk of Rs 12 lakh crore worth of investment proposals from the five editions of the Bengal Global Business Summit (2015-19), actual investments “were Rs 50,000-60,000 crore in the past decade”, says a senior government official on condition of anonymity. “Of this, the Centre’s contribution was around Rs 10,000-12,000 crore. As for jobs, around 100,000 were created in big industries and another 300,000 in MSMEs,” adds the official. Ex-industry minister and current finance minister Amit Mitra, however, insists that 40 per cent of said investment proposals are in various stages of implementation.