Land panel to vet steel plans

The large number of proposals to set up steel plants in West Bengal has made the state government apprehensive on their economic viability.

"We are getting many proposals and this is a growing concern for us as a steel plant requires a huge amount of land and we don't want scarce land to be locked up in industries which have questionable viability," said Sabyasachi Sen, principal secretary of the department of commerce and industries of West Bengal.

The state government was setting up a committee of experts to study the viability of proposed steel plants and advise on land required for setting up a typical 1 million ton steel plant.

"There is a general tendency among industrialists to ask for more land than actually required - the committee would scrutinise the land requirements of the proposals," Sen added.

Commenting on strikes in the state, Sen said all political parties could arrive at a common solution so that strikes were the last type of protest rather than the only one.

Talking at the Indian Chamber of Commerce, Sen said that the land controversy had to be resolved as soon as possible as several projects were stalled because of land shortage.

"We cannot move on with projects like the proposed highway from Barasat to Raichak following protests from the general public. The basic problem lies in the fact that people are not sure how industry would be beneficial but there is no choice but to get peoples' support," he added.

Around a dozen proposed steel plants with capacity of 37-38 million ton were awaiting approval.

Another concern of the state government was that most raw materials apart from coal would come from other states.