Bengal urges industrialists to go for direct purchase of land

The West Bengal government today reiterated that it would not allow any forcible acquisition of land and urged industrialists to go for direct purchase.
"Direct purchase works and the same has been seen in case of certain past projects of the government," state Chief Secretary Sanjay Mitra said at a workshop on 'Doing business in West Bengal'.
"It is very clear. Nobody to be moved if not wanted," Mitra said during interactive session attended by industrialists and entrepreneurs.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had on Wednesday stated that her government was against even one per cent forcible land acquisition. "We don't accept forcible land acquisition," she had said.

Sajjan Bhajanka of Century Ply said that his company is trying to acquire 50 acres of land for a cement grinding unit near Siliguri and so far have managed to acquire 20-22 acres of land.
ITC chairman Y C Deveshwar who attended the session praised the state government saying, "There are range of reforms and the amount of good work done is very significant. Results you will begin to see slowly."

He said that ITC do not have any problems in the state.
Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion joint secretary Atul Chaturvedi said West Bengal is one of the first few states to send replies based on queries sent out by the Centre for ranking states on 'ease of doing business'.

The process of ranking will begin by the end of this month based on the responses DIPP gets from them to its questionnaire covering a wide range of parameters.
The DIPP had circulated a set of 285 questions to all the states in this regard. The state governments had to submit the response by June 20.
After assessment by KPMG the same will be endorsed by World Bank and the ranking would be declared by the Centre.
The chief secretary said that the state is not in race for ranking. "We are not in the race but if we get a good ranking it is good," he said.