| Saturday , December 19 , 2015 |
State secret everyone knows |
| OUR CORRESPONDENT |
| Durgapur, Dec. 18: Worst-kept secrets sometimes spill out from the least expected quarters. A Trinamul leader from the districts today said that "no one has stepped in yet" to set up industry. Such a public statement in contemporary Bengal is akin to the famed child's cry - "But he isn't wearing anything at all!" - in Hans Christian Andersen's short tale, The Emperor's New Clothes. " Ekta porishkar kotha bolte hoy, shilper golpota amra shunte shunte char bochhor periye gelo. Shilpo korbo korbo sabai chinta bhabna korchhen, kintu ekhono keu paa baran ni. Eta otyonto dukkher (A clear point has to be made - we have spent four years listening to the story of industry. Everyone is thinking about setting up industry, but no one has stepped in yet. This is very sad)," Arup Chakraborty said today in Durgapur. Chakraborty is the chief of the Trinamul-run Bankura zilla parishad. He was speaking at a conclave on micro, small and medium enterprises in Durgapur. The conclave had been organised by the state government in association with the zilla parishads of Bankura and Burdwan, which share borders. It can be argued that Chakraborty may have meant industry in just Burdwan and Bankura, not entire Bengal. The distinction is crucial because state industries minister Amit Mitra has been spotting an industrial resurgence in Bengal. From Nabanna, the state secretariat, Mitra is expected to have a better overview of the industrial landscape of Bengal than a zilla parishad chief. Asked later whether he meant the state had failed to attract industry, Chakraborty said: "During its 34-year rule, the CPM made the state barren. Our government had only four years to build infrastructure. Industries will come up now." Such confidence is in line with what Mitra, the industries as well as finance minister, has been saying for long. On January 2, Mitra had said in Mumbai: "Contrary to the general perception, West Bengal is on a growth path. The state has attracted investments worth Rs 83,212 crore between April 2011 and December 2014, which includes investments in operational as well as upcoming large and medium industrial units." Chief minister Mamata Banerjee has also been making similar statements. "The state has received investment proposals worth around Rs 2.43 lakh crore during the summit," she had said at the Bengal Global Business Summit on January 8. The Opposition has been contesting these figures. |