Tata is wrong: Rajarhat is no industrial hub anyway

Tweet from Ratan Tata that he did not see much industrial development in Rajarhat has led to a war of words between him & the Bengal govt

Ratan Tata has made a serious mistake in hoping to see industrialisation in Rajarhat. That is simply because New Town as it is also called was not conceived to be an industrial hub in the first place.

It is similar to Mr Tata expecting to see industrial units in Mumbai’s Bandra-Kurla area or the CBD in Navi Mumbai which was again conceived to be only a commercial and business centres and surely does not have an signs of industrial estates.

 

A tweet from Mr Tata yesterday that while driving from Kolkata airport to his hotel through Rajarhat saying that while he saw a lot of residential and commercial development, he did not see much industrial development has kicked off a ruckus with the Amit Mitra finance minister of West Bengal asking him to stick to flying. 

 

Rajarhat has been conceived as the satellite city to Kolkata which is three times the size of Salt Lake City, the other alternative hub near Kolkata. What Mr Tata saw while driving from Kolkata airport to the Sonar Bangla hotel was designed for three things. One it is a residential zone with shopping malls and some commercial plots, it is also the main central business district and a third which is for IT parks. 

 

The Tatas are of course one of the key players in this area. TCS is investing about Rs 1,350 crore in an IT campus spread over 40 acres, and once completed, it will house over 16,500 seats according to news reports.

Tata Housing has launched Tata Eden a upmarket residential project again in Rajarhat. And even Shapporji Paloonji has been involved in a mega housing project on a 150-acre plot at Rajarhat.

Tatas also have a hospital in the area. So it is not surprising that West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra raised the issue as to whether Tata has not been adequately briefed by his own group. 

 

They are of course not the only ones. Wipro have also been allotted space for a IT hub. And many large IT companies like IBM, Accenture, Cognizant have already set shop, acquired prime land in New Town and their facilities will be ready soon. 

 

Whether industries are coming into West Bengal after Mamata Banerjee took over as chief minister or not is a debatable issue especially as she is making a trip to Singapore soon to woo investors. But Mr Tata, who pulled out the Nano plant from the state to Gujarat after a bitter battle with Ms Banerjee can hardly judge the state of industrialisation based on a less-than-hour travel from the airport.