Salim says it will execute Bengal projects

At a time when the West Bengal government has given up almost all hope of keeping Tata Motors’ Nano project, Indonesia’s Salim group today reiterated his commitment to the state and projects which it claimed was worth Rs 5 lakh crore.

“We are committed to Bengal,” said Benny Santoso, chief executive, Salim group, responding to queries on whether Tata Motors’ possible pullout from Singur would affect the group’s investments.

NRI businessman, Prasoon Mukherjee, chairman, Universal Success Enterprises, said that the West Bengal chief minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was briefed about the status of the projects in the state. Universal Success is also investing in the projects.

Mukherjee said, the discussions were very fruitful and productive meeting.

The main projects were the housing project under Kolkata West International City, the chemical hub of NKID, the power project of Universal Success and the motorcycle project to be undertaken by Mahabharat Motors.

Mukherjee said, for the motorcycle project, TVS had been roped in as the contract manufacturer.

The brandname would be TVS but the equity would be with the Salim group and Universal Success.

The construction of the factory would be completed end of December and installation of the machine would take another quarter, in March. The total project cost was Rs 1,200 crore and 7,000 bikes per month would be rolled out.

On the chemical hub project, Mukherjee said, a lot of progress had been made on Nayachar. Cost estimates were done.

The site for the chemical hub had to be shifted to Nayachar from Nandigram as the land acquisition ran into major controversy.

Mukherjee said, on all the projects the group would move only if there was consensus on land acquisition from the people.

“We are not adamant on any process for land acquisition but we will move only if there is land acquisition,” he explained.

The Eastern Link Highway, linking Barasat with Raichak, has been hanging fire as there was widespread local protests on land acquisition.