Bengal govt likely to take back 12,000 acre land in Nayachar

The West Bengal government is likely to take back 12,000 acre land in Nayachar near Haldia in the state's East Midnapore district it had earlier allotted to NRI Prasoon Mukherjee led Universal Success Enterprises.

"We have initiated talks with Prasoon (Banerjee) to resume the land", the state's chief minister Mamata Banerjee told mediapersons here after the completion of the Bengal Global Business Summit.

"Resume", Banerjee later clarified implied the government's plans of taking back the land.

Following scrapping off of the Salim Group's chemical hub project - where Universal Success Enterprises had a stake - the government had allotted the land to the industrialist to build a 2,000 MW thermal project, an industrial park and an eco-tourism project involving a consolidated investment of Rs 26,000 crore.

The revised investment proposal also ran into trouble as environmental clearances could not be obtained from the union environment ministry on grounds of ecological impact in the region. The government has now decided to take back the allotted land in the island to develop eco-tourism projects encompassing fishermen's financial progress in the region.

To work it out, while Mukherjee will carry on with the planned real-estate investment proposal in Baruipur, options will be given to the former Salim Group's Indian partner to set-up a solar power project in Nayachar. In turn, the state government will take back the land it had allotted in the island way back in 2011.

Banerjee, immediately after coming to power had allotted 96 acres of land to Mukherjee for development of real-estate in the planned township near the state's capital.