No going back on industrialisation: Buddhadeb

The failure of his dream project, Nano, in Singur marked a turning point in West Bengal's politics as Trinamool Congress saw its popularity surge in recent elections riding on the agitation.

But ahead of the assembly polls in the state, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, confident of forming eighth Left Front government on Wednesday said that his party would continue to walk on the path of idustrialisation with an emphasis on the small and medium scale industries.

“There is no other way to generate employment other than industrialisation. We will form the eighth Left Front government in the state and continue to bring investments. And our focus will be more on small and medium scale industries which can provide employment to a large section of people,” Bhattacharjee said at a press conference today.

However, he said that the government would be more careful in dealing with land acquisition issue as it had learnt lessons from the Singur incident.

“We have learnt lessons from Singur. We must be more cautious. We should try to build up the concensus among the land owners while acquiring land” he said.

After the Singur incident the government also came up a with a “land-use map” specifying the nature of the land which he said, will be the “guideline” for the goverment to acquire land. The government has also successfully acquired 8,100 acres of land in the last three years.

“In 2008, 2009 and 2010 we have successfully acquired 8,100 acres of land without any problem for various projects in different parts of the state like Kharagpur, Andal, Panagarh and even in Naihati which is just next to Kolkata,” he added.

He also claimed that investment was on the rise in the state. “In 2009, the total invesment in the state was Rs 8,500 crore and in the year 2010 it was Rs 15,000 crore. Salbani is going to be the largest the steel plant in the private sector,” he said.

The information technology industry is also booming with the upcoming hub in Rajarhat (Greater Kolkata) which he said would be providing employment to 2-2.5 lakh people.

However, he also said that the Left Front government had always been with the farmers and would continue to increase food grain production.

“West Bengal is the only state where 84 per cent agricultural land is in the hands of the farmers. We have achieved self sufficiency in rice production. It is a success story in West Bengal,” he noted.

Whether Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee or Mamata Banerjee, that the West Bengal government would pursue industrialisation is now certain. Banerjee's manifesto unveiled recently emphasises on industrialisation.