Mamata to visit Singapore with biz delegation

In her first trip to a foreign country after assuming charge as Chief Minister of West Bengal in May 2011, Mamata Banerjee would visit Singapore with a business delegation to attract investments for the state.

Inaugurating a Rs 615-crore cement plant of OCL India here today, Banerjee said she would visit Singapore accompanied by representatives of various chambers of commerce.

She said her visit was aimed at bringing in foreign investments to the state.

Banerjee said Midnapur district had already received investments amounting to Rs 40,000 crore, adding that the area had huge investment potential.

The Chief Minister said the government already had a land bank of 1,000 acres at Goaltore in West Midnapur for setting up industries.

She said that all Sec 14Y applications had been cleared and there was none pending. The section involved land ceiling clearance for those units where land was in excess of 24 acres.

The state had a proposed investment of Rs 1.2 lakh crore which had huge job creation potential.

Comparing state and national figures, she said that West Bengal growth in domestic product terms was higher than that of the country as well as that of industry and services sectors.

There were 35,000 MSME units in the state employing 3.5 lakh persons, she said.

The state witnessed zero mandays lost as compared to 78 lakh during the Left era, she said, adding that the government was opposed to bandhs and closure.

She also pointed out that the Centre had deducted Rs 1 lakh crore as debt and interest payment, "but still we are growing. We should work with a positive mindset and grow peacefully," she said.

Director of OCL India, Puneet Dalmia said they were earlier apprehensive about coming to West Bengal. "But we are happy to be here. Everything worked out well," he said.

The plant would have a capcity of 2 million tonnes per annum.