Making jobs in City of Joy: Is West Bengal ready to up its economic game?

From IT hubs in Kolkata to manufacturing revivals in Uttarpara and mega power projects in Salboni, Bengal is wooing corporate giants to reverse migration and fuel economic growth

Less than a year to go before the Assembly election, reports of attack on Bengali-speaking migrant workers across BJP-ruled states have taken centre stage in West Bengal politics.

 

While Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has launched Bhasha Andolan (language movement), parties in Opposition — the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Bharatiya Janata Party — are citing the lack of job opportunities that led to migration of workers, bringing the spotlight on what West Bengal has to offer.

 

Banerjee has appealed to the state’s 2.2 million migrant workers to return home. But,  are there enough opportunities for them? 

 

Titans touchdown

 

Before the political din in Bengal reached a crescendo, however, an unexpected visitor came calling — Tata Group Chairman N Chandrasekaran.

 

On July 9, the CM held the first formal meeting with the chairman of India’s largest business conglomerate — since coming to power in West Bengal 14 years ago following a high-voltage agitation against land acquisition that led to the dramatic pullout of Tata Motors’ Nano project from Singur.

 

The conversation between Chandrasekaran and Banerjee is said to have focused on deepening the Tata group’s presence in the state.

 

The details were still under wraps when another corporate bigwig made his way to Nabanna, the state secretariat. On August 4, Gautam Adani, chairman of the Adani group, called on Banerjee, adding to the buzz around Bengal’s corporate courtship. 

 

Past shadows, present pitch

 

Bengal has long grappled with a legacy of capital flight through the 1970s, the 1980s, and later. This was followed by what is called the “brain drain”. And finally, a steady migration of people in blue collar jobs.

The capital flow was briefly reversed during Buddhadeb Bhattcharjee’s tenure, when investor interest saw a marked uptick. The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) data between 2005-06 and 2009-10 show that cumulative investment intentions in West Bengal amounted to over ₹2 trillion.

 

Banerjee’s tenure has been relatively muted if DPIIT numbers are taken as a yardstick. But the annual report of DPIIT for 2024-25, reflects a change — with West Bengal ranking fourth in terms of proposed investment at ₹39,133 crore after Maharashtra, Gujarat, Odisha, and Uttar Pradesh. In implementation though, it ranked 14th.

 

The Bengal Global Investor Summit, held in February 2025, throws up a different set of numbers. It is said to have received investment proposals worth ₹4.4 trillion.

 

At this year’s event, Mukesh Ambani pledged an additional ₹50,000 crore by the end of the decade; the RPSG group and the Ambuja Neotia group announced investments of ₹10,000 crore and ₹15,000 crore, respectively.

 

“This is home — I never needed convincing,” Harsh Neotia, chairman, Ambuja Neotia group, told Business Standard on investing in Bengal. “Others may be quicker, but Bengal’s finding its stride.”

While investment summits are often about tall claims and big numbers, they do offer visibility on some projects, and job creation.

 

Buzz in the tech hub

 

Centred around Sector V in Salt Lake and New Town Rajarhat in the north-eastern periphery of Kolkata, West Bengal has a significant IT (information technology) base. Government sources peg the number of IT professionals in Bengal at more than 300,000. That number could see a significant jump over the next few years. 

 

In December, Infosys started its development centre on a 50-acre plot, creating employment potential of about 4,000. A stone’s throw away, ITC’s wholly-owned subsidiary ITC Infotech launched the ITC Green Centre where 1,000 AI (artificial intelligence) specialists will be working at its Global AI Centre of Excellence.

 

Also, there’s action at the Bengal Silicon Valley Tech Hub in Rajarhat where 250 acres were offered at 25 per cent of the market price. About 42 companies have taken up space — from Reliance IT Park (40 acres) to Adani (51.75 acres), NTT, LTIMindtree, Nxtra, and a host of data centre companies.

 

Tata Consultancy Services, which employs more than 54,000 in the state across multiple locations, will set up another campus on 20 acres at the Hub – creating 25,000 direct employment opportunities.

 

New Town-Rajarhat is witnessing planned development, Samantak Das, Chief Economist & Head of Research, JLL India, said. “In the next 3–5 years, Kolkata has the potential to attract interest from marquee funds and investors, provided an ecosystem is created with a focused approach.”

As of now, it lags Bengaluru, Pune and Hyderabad, Das pointed out.  

 

The big bets

 

While the IT sector is looking to reverse the “brain drain”, blue collar job creation is driven by manufacturing — and there is a semblance of it gaining traction.  

 

Uttarpara in the Hooghly district was once the epicentre of economic activity with the Hindustan Motors plant rolling out the iconic Ambassador car. But a “suspension of work” in 2014 dealt the area a big blow.

On July 11, the West Bengal government started reclaiming 395 acres allotted to Hindustan Motors after a legal win.

 

About 40 acres of the resumed land parcel was leased to Titagarh Rail Systems for setting up a coach manufacturing facility. With the additional capacity, the combined plant is expected to become the largest coach manufacturing facility in Asia, outside of China.

 

The existing Uttarpara plant now employs 1,500 to 2,000 people, Umesh Chowdhary, vice chairman and managing director, Titagarh Rail Systems, said. “With the new unit, we aim to triple that. We plan to build a capacity to be able to produce 1,000-1,200 coaches per year with a revenue potential of ₹8,000-10,000 crore.”

 

Coach manufacturing involves thousands of components, and if ancillary units set up shop on this land — just 18 kilometres from Kolkata — it could well be a game-changer for West Bengal’s industrial ecosystem. 

 

Steel to power push

 

Big-ticket and eye-grabbing projects have been the regime’s Achilles heel — but at least two are on the runway.

 

For more than a decade Sajjan Jindal’s power plant project at Salboni in Paschim Medinipur has been in the making. But in April 2025, the $23 billion-group finally broke ground on a 1,600 megawatt power plant.

The ₹16,000 crore power plant will be the largest greenfield plant from JSW Energy and the biggest thermal power project by the private sector in West Bengal. In addition, JSW Industrial Park will come up at Salboni with a plug-and-play infrastructure to attract high-quality industries.

 

On the anvil is also a 4.5 million tonne brownfield expansion at SAIL’s IISCO Steel Plant in Burnpur where an investment of ₹36,000 crore over three years is expected to create blue and white collar jobs.

 

As an industrialist pointed out, manufacturing is what Bengal needs. “We just can’t rely on services and real estate.”

 

Is Bengal ready to up its game?

‘We have an optimum mix of big and small': Amit Mitra

 

Amit Mitra, principal chief advisor to chief minister, West Bengal, speaks to Ishita Ayan Dutt on investment potential in the state in a telephonic interview. Edited excerpts:  Which are the focus sectors for West Bengal to attract investment?

 

The state is focusing on growth-centric, employment-generating, and export-oriented sectors that leverage Bengal’s strategic location and natural endowments. For example, a ₹26,793 crore steel hub is coming up in Purulia, creating 71,000 jobs. As many as 29 cement plants have come up with ₹20,035 crore invested — more on the anvil.

 

Which are the key projects expected to drive industrial push?

 

Projects like the Deocha Pachami — the world’s second largest coal block — will attract ₹35,000 crore in Phase I and create 100,000 jobs. The Bengal Silicon Valley Hub has drawn ₹26,959 crore and will employ 75,000 IT professionals. It is housing 11 data centres and will get a fillip with a new undersea cable landing in Digha from Singapore by Jio.

 

The government appears to be more focused on MSMEs... Why?

 

We have an optimum mix of big ticket investments and huge decentralised employment-generating MSMEs. That is why Bengal’s unemployment rate was at 5.79 per cent when India’s average unemployment was at 8.05 per cent (CMIE). West Bengal has over 13.6 million people employed in the MSME sector. The number of clusters has surged from 49 to 660 under Mamata Banerjee’s tenure. But we are here to welcome enterprises of all sizes — big, medium and small, invariably in synergy.