Petrapole land port project gets land policy boost

West Bengal’s new land policy may not have gone down well with the industry, but it might just turn positive for central government's Petrapole land port project, which was stuck due to land acquisition issues.

According to the state commerce and industries minister Partha Chatterjee, the issue is almost solved and even on the basis of the state’s new land acquisition policy it would get a green signal as the project comes under the subject of “national security and development”.

“Recently, the Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee had written a letter to the chief minister Mamata Banerjee regarding the Petrapole land port project. She has entrusted me to solve issue and we are hoping that it would be solved soon,” he said. He indicated that the land policy has turned out to be a boost for the project.

The state’s new land policy says that it will not acquire land for private projects, not even for projects in the public-private-partnership model.

It stated that land would be acquired for public purpose projects like building of bridges, embankments, irrigation, railway tracks and hospitals.

The North 24-Parganas district administration was facing problems regarding land acquisition for the project as land owners of Petrapole and Pirojpur, under Chaighoria gram panchayat, refused to sell their land at a price fixed by the government.

“We are in talks with them, and with the new remuneration package hope the problem will be solved,” he said.

For the whole project — which includes setting up of an integrated check post, construction of a five star hotel, guest house and setting up offices — needs 38 hector (230 bighas) of land according to reports.

The move by the Centre government was to increase the export and import business with Bangladesh.

Petrapole Land Customs Station (LCS) is on the same lines as it is on the other side of the border at Benapole in Bangladesh.