Anarchic West Bengal chasing away industry: Buddhadeb

Tamluk, West Bengal: Claiming that anarchy prevailed in West Bengal in the seven-month rule of the Mamata Banerjee government, former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today said that industrialists have turned away their faces from new investment and farmers are not getting right price for their produce.[caption id=“attachment_174753” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Mamata on the radar. PTI”]  [/caption] “Anarchy prevails in every field, be it industry, agriculture, electricity or education. Not a single new investment has come during the seventh-month tenure as industrialists are wondering how they can invest in the state. Industry requires land, but the state government says they can’t give it.” During the Left Front rule, JSW group came to set up steel plant at Salboni, IT major Infosys, Wipro set up their shops, a big fertiliser plant was coming up near Durgapur, Bhattacharjee said while addressing the East Midnapore district conference of the CPM. On the Nandigram issue, Bhattacharjee said the LF government wanted to set up another business hub there like Haldia where lots of industries came up and provided huge employment opportunities. Mentioning the Trinamool Congress-led government’s stand that it would not acquire land for industry, he said that it could not provide land even for power plant. “We had set up Kolaghat thermal power station. Have we committed mistake? The state government also could not pay for coal required for power plants”, he said. “They talked about brining a change, but what kind of change the people are witnessing? Farmers are not getting price for paddy. They have to sell paddy at Rs 600/700 per quintal instead of Rs 1,100 which they got earlier. The state government has no mechanism to procure paddy,” he pointed out. PTI