West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday assured to come to the rescue of industrialists and said she feels bad when businessmen are harassed by politicians.
“Don’t worry. I would protect you because I consider you as part of my family. I will not spare my party members as well,” the chief minister said at the opening of the Bengal Global Business Summit which was attended by top industrial honchos Mukesh Ambani, Sajjan Jindal and Lakshmi Mittal among others.
Jindal, who recently turned his steel project in Bengal’s Shalboni into a cement factory, said he would like to spend Rs 10,000 crore in the state in the coming years.
Ambani said he had already spend Rs 15,000 crore in Jio and added that he would spend Rs 5,000 crore in the next few years in retail and petroleum industry in the state.
Negotiation is under way on Reliance’s investment in ailing Haldia Petrochemicals development corporation.
Mittal, however, did not make any promises although he praised the chief minister.
Mamata had gone to London and invited Mittal to come to Kolkata to attend the business meet. She also went to Mumbai to invite Ambani to attend the business meet. The chief minister, however, did not meet his brother, Anil Ambani.
Mamata asked the industrialists to invest in Bengal as the state has come up as the best industrialist friendly state in India in a government survey.
“We are a power surplus state and there is a political stability in the state which is conducive for you to invest,” said the chief minister.
She said all the hurdles before the investments would be done away with, but stayed away from talking about land acquisition which is the only roadblock in the state.
“If she could guarantee the industrialists about land acquisition, West Bengal would have seen the biggest industrialisation in manufacturing sector,” said a business head who was present at the meeting.
The meeting saw many foreign diplomats, foreign business consultants and business executives from 30 countries participating.
