| Wednesday , January 7 , 2015 |
Is it a wedding? No, it's a summit |
| Devadeep Purohit |
 Fireworks at the soft launch on Tuesday evening.  Arun Jaitley and Derek O’ Brien (right) at the event. Pictures by Sanat Kr Sinha Hang on Mr Amit Mitra, he is not here to cover the Bengal Global Business Summit that chief minister Mamata Banerjee will inaugurate on Wednesday morning. He is here to probe the gang-rape of a 23-year-old Japanese tourist, who fell prey to a foreign-language-speaking gang operating in Calcutta last November. Mamata's showpiece event - which finance and industries minister Amit Mitra claims is a global business meet - is not on the radar of the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper specialising in business news. The fine print: business in Bengal hardly makes news sense. Still, thousands - a sizeable chunk from beyond Bengal and even from abroad - will be seen at the two-day summit on the helipad grounds near Salt Lake Stadium. Government sources are seeking comfort in an apparent rush for cards - both the normal ones for the hoi polloi and the gold cards for the high and mighty. Heartache in at least one business family after receiving the wrong class of cards - possibly because of a mix-up - is also being construed as "eagerness" among industrialists to be seen at the venue. Till now, Mitra has held the list of guests close to his chest, promising to pull business tigers - not rabbits - out of his hat. Sources said that some of the biggest corporate names are unlikely to make it. But Mitra is certain to tout the line-up of senior professionals from local and global companies, banks and various public sector units as evidence of success of the summit. Some of these professionals are well-known across the country. Such turnouts - not to mention the mandatory presence of Tollywood stars - usually gift bragging rights to hosts of wedding receptions and similar social occasions. In keeping with the unintentional theme, fireworks lit up the sky tonight at Ecopark at the soft launch of the business summit. Among those present were Union finance minister Arun Jaitley, industrialist Adi Godrej, actress-MP Moon Moon Sen, artist and MP Jogen Chowdhury and diplomats. The irony was as stark as the person standing beside Jaitley: Trinamul was forced to eat humble pie and bank on the Union finance minister who was called "Frustrated Minister" and "Falsehood Minister" by Derek O' Brien, the Trinamul national spokesperson, who was two steps behind the guest from New Delhi. Drowned in the self-congratulatory environment and dazzle of the fireworks were questions such as who have come, why they have come, whether their areas of specialisation tie in with Bengal's requirement and potential and what they will do after attending the summit. "I have businesses in Bengal and I have got an invitation. I will have to go there primarily to show my face to the chief minister," said a city-based industrialist who is a regular at programmes sponsored by the Bengal government. The industrialist also has business interests in Gujarat but he will not attend this month's Vibrant Gujarat - a biennial investor event started by Narendra Modi when he was chief minister. Before Mitra could jump for joy and claim how Bengal has edged Gujarat out of the businessman's agenda, here's reason. "There is no need to be physically present in Gujarat. I do not know the name of the chief secretary or senior ministers of Gujarat but that hardly matters. Business is on auto-pilot there and that's why industry gets attracted. Here, the situation is different," said the industrialist. Ahead of Vibrant Gujarat, the government there made several announcements on Tuesday to encourage labour-intensive projects. Among them is a five-year monthly assistance of Rs 1,200 and Rs 1,500 for every woman and man, respectively, employed in small units registered with the Employees' Provident Fund. The Bengal government also gives Rs 1,500 a month to 1 lakh people. But that is an unemployment dole - a humanitarian gesture that saps the self-esteem of youths and does little to find them lasting jobs. There are several stories of how industrialists - without any personal contact with the government or the bureaucracy and even recommended by Congress functionaries - in Gujarat have managed to set up units without any hitch. Cut to Bengal, where political masters ascertain the political affiliation of investors before giving the go ahead. A bureaucrat recalled how a hospitality venture of a city-based industrialist was sent to the freezer by the chief minister on an assumption that he was close to the previous Left regime. Discretion laced with political vendetta makes doing business a risky venture. The toxic cocktail was originally tossed up when the Left was in power. Bengal saw the rise of crony capitalism with a handful of industrialists getting favours - such as cheap land, clearance for projects and freedom to overcharge consumers - from the government. Following the change of guard in Bengal, most of these industrialists switched sides and become Mamata's avowed supporters and Bengal's brand ambassadors. Over the next two days, some of them will be seen sharing the dais with the chief minister, singing praise to the business environment of Bengal and signing MoUs to reaffirm their commitments to the state. Such declarations of faith had rung out loud and clear earlier too - in Delhi, in Mumbai and in Singapore, besides the two summits in Bengal itself. "Everyone in the government knows that all these hardly yielded anything," said a senior official. The state government's hands-off land policy, aversion to repeal draconian provisions such as urban land ceiling and its refusal to grant SEZ status to industry have often been cited as the biggest impediments to industrialisation in Bengal. Besides the policy hurdles, other factors - poor work culture reflected in the surfeit of holidays, political interference in industrial units, both legacies of the Left regime that have intensified in recent years - have been cited. After coming to power, Mamata claimed that she would change things for the better. But with joblessness all around, the business of syndicates - Trinamul-backed informal co-operatives supplying construction materials - boomed across the state. The chief minister did succeed in bottling the bandh genie but the populist streak in her ended up increasing the number of holidays for government employees and she turned a blind eye to the worsening industrial relations in factories. "For political reasons, a politician cannot openly admit all the problems. But in private they need to recognise the weak points and work on them. The biggest problem is that the chief minister doesn't recognise there are serious problems. And there is no one around her to summon the courage to point out that things ought to change," a senior IAS officer summed up. Bengal Global Business Summit exhorts participants to "Come to Bengal, Ride the Growth". The question is whether Mitra will talk the talk with Mamata and the chief minister will walk the talk? SNEAK PREVIEW HOW TO FASTEN YOUR SEATBELT FOR THE GREAT RIDE What to expect at the two-day Bengal Global Business Summit 2015 that begins on Wednesday with the slogan ‘Come to Bengal, Ride the Growth’Growth drumbeat
NRI focus
MoU rain
Land ahoy
Star power
is the real business of Bengal” Gifts galore
The takeaway
and good intentions
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