Newsmaker: Amit Mitra

Mamata's Mitra pulls his socks up for polls

If India’s balance of payments crisis in 1990-91 enthused economist Manmohan Singh to enter politics, West Bengal’s economic stagnation and the opportunity to do something about it has prompted economist-turned-business-journalist-turned-industry-lobbyist Amit Mitra to enter state politics via the Trinamool Congress.

In the Ficci Secretary-General, Mamata Banerjee may find the right man to turn around Bengal’s crisis-ridden economy after three decades of Left ‘misrule’. From petitioning governments to adopt pro-business policies, Mitra will now have to petition business leaders to adopt a pro-Bengal policy!

While speculation is rife that the Padma Shree awardee may be pitted against another economics accademician and West Bengal Finance Minister Asim Dasgupta from Kharda constituency, Mitra told Business Standard: “All I can say is that I am ready to plunge into this poll process.”

While Mitra is unable to confirm his plans to contest the Assembly election, with poll lists not yet ready, he says: “But, I am very much ready.”

The Delhi School of Economics-educated Mitra may be the best man available to change the anti-business image of Banerjee, after she drove out Tatas from Singur and spearheaded agitation against land acquisition in Nandigram. With ultra left on the one side, and Mitra on the other, ‘Didi’ may be trying to strike a balance between political compulsion and governance, after elections.

Mitra said, in a democracy, you cannot coerce people to sell their land and land acquisition has to be a collaborative process, especially in West Bengal, as 99 per cent of land in the state is cultivated.

So far as Banerjee’s anti-industry image is concerned, he says public-private partnership (PPP) model has seen a lot of success in the Railways under her. Four companies — from France, Canada, the US and Germany — have participated in the bidding of electric engine manufacturing, because they saw integrity in the railway minister and transparency in the process.

Mitra is no stranger to the TMC chief, as he heads an expert committee constituted by her to advise the railways on innovative financing and implementation of the economically unviable, but socially desired, projects.

After obtaining doctorate in Economics from Duke University, US, in 1978, Mitra taught at major universities, like Duke and Franklin Marshall College over a decade.

Coming back to India, Mitra has been the secretary-general of Ficci since 1994. In line with Mitra’s usual refrain, he stays where he was 17 years back at Ficci, even as everyone else has been promoted.

He is also on the board of Air India-National Aviation Company of India (Nacil), besides being the chairman of the committee set up by the information & broadcasting ministry to review the existing television rating point (TRP) system in India, to name a few of his engagements.

In Mitra, Didi may find forceful arguments for ending the state government’s ideological opposition to pension reforms and fiscal consolidation. West Bengal, like other Left-ruled states, has not joined the New Pension System and does not have its Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) legislation.

Mitra says West Bengal has gone down on all parameters — fiscal situation, industrial development or governance — during the 34-year rule of CPI(M). To buttress his arguments, he says the state has a debt of Rs 2 lakh crore, making its financial position vulnerable, since large part of revenues go to servicing the debt.

After the landmark land reforms under the communist regime, Mitra, if he wins and Banerjee makes him the state finance minister, as is widely speculated, may usher the state into economic reforms to generate employment for the Bengali youth.