Sarabjit Kaur
West Bengal has received investment proposals of nearly Rs 2.20 lakh crore during the Bengal Global Business Summit (BGBS) with a potential to create 20 lakh jobs, chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said.
However, the micro, small and medium enterprises have bagged an investment proposal of Rs 52,925 crore, the state’s finance minister Amit Mitra said.
The break-up of proposal in manufacturing and infrastructure included Rs 1.56 lakh crore and IT and ITeS were Rs 1,146 crore, he added.
During the two-day summit, 1,046 business-to-business (B2B) and 40 business-to-government (B2G) meetings were held, Banerjee said.
Besides, she said, over 110 MoUs were signed covering mining, power, education, cutting-edge technology, animation centre, skill development, warehouses, food processing, animal resource development, transport and leather.
“New investment proposals this year received were close to Rs 2.20 lakh crore with a job creating potential of 20 lakh,” Banerjee said at the mega event held at the newly- constructed Biswa Bangla Convention Centre at New Town in Kolkata.
She said that one lakh jobs would be provided by Reliance Industries alone as announced by its chairman Mukesh Ambani on Tuesday.
Other proposals included Rs 1,518 crore in animal resource development, food processing and fisheries, Rs 1,483 crore in hospitality and tourism, Rs 6,015 crore in healthcare and skill development.
“The summit was highly successful with big names like Mukesh Ambani, L N Mittal, Sajjan Jindal, Uday Kotak, Pranav Adani, N Hiranandani, Kishore Biyani, Pranab Adani and local industrialists like Sanjiv Goenka, Harsh Neotia attending it,” Banerjee said.
This year’s BGBS saw participation from 32 countries with nine of them being partners. The next edition will be held on 7 and 8 February, 2019.
Major business groups which announced investments at the summit included Reliance Industries, Adani Group, JSW group, Adventz group and RP-Sanjiv Goenka group.
There was, however, no representation from the central government at the BGBS this year.
Union minister Nitin Gadkari, who was scheduled to attend the meet, chose to stay away following alleged attack on the BJP rally by ruling Trinamool Congress activists on 12 January. After the incident, state BJP president Dilip Ghosh had stated that Gadkari will not attend the summit.
Banerjee said that 50 per cent of the investment proposals made at the last year’s event were already in progress.
She said that Bengal was the new investment destination now because of political stability, industry-friendly environment and also because of its strategic location.
In an oblique criticism of the BJP, she said that the state was tolerant and no discrimination was done in respect to caste, creed and religion.
“If you can tolerate everyone, then everything can be done,” she said.
Top industrialists heaped praise on her with India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani calling it nothing short of a “miracle” that the state has adopted a change in mindset to welcome industry.
“Didi, under your leadership, West Bengal will be the best Bengal,” Ambani had said on Tuesday.
Mitra said that the state government, in the course of the two-day summit, also announced logistics park development promotion policy, export promotion policy and RoRo operation promotion policy.
Ratnabali group would set up an autism therapy centre outside the city at a cost of Rs 600 crore which was a first in the country, he said.
Multinational companies including Dassult, Aramco, Dubai Multi Commodity Center, Samsung Pepsi Co Covestro, Chemixil have expressed business interest in Bengal, a government statement said.
(With PTI Inputs)
