For a very long time, opportunities were scarce in West Bengal, as there was nothing for the youngsters to look forward to regarding job openings in the state, West Bengal Finance Minister Swapan Dasgupta said. Speaking during the ‘Tech-E-Summit’ in Bengaluru, the minister said this had forced youngsters to cities like Gurgaon, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru, adding, “We have to create those industries to get our talent back.”
He said modern industry in India originated from Bengal, but currently, the state does not have a GST policy and also doesn’t have an industrial policy. The present government has inherited a structure that was a policy design desert, which needs to be changed. “We have to build the architecture on which this can be done. And we are doing it purposefully, and we hope to complete it very soon. We hope to get the first round done by August 15th, and within about October, November, we should get, I think, more or less the elementary architecture in place,” said Dasgupta.
He further pointed out that middle-class Bengalis have woken up thinking that they had missed the bus. “Elderly people came in droves to vote. You know why? They said that they want to get their sons and daughters back to the state,” said Dasgupta. He said that a mindset change needs to happen in West Bengal, as there has been a mindset that doing business was somehow inherently evil and that profit is a dirty word.
He further added that great investments made in the 60s in the state were allowed to go to waste, and an entire city called Kalyani, which is just on the outskirts of Kolkata, was somehow never allowed to take off. “We will do everything to make the laws and regulations of this government so that we are competitive with the rest of the country. Maybe we will not reach the level of Gujarat, maybe we will not reach the level of Karnataka at one go, but certainly, we will try to be as competitive as Odisha and try to do what Assam has done,” remarked Dasgupta.
He said his government would want to get the industries back to the state and will give whatever concessions they can give to the industries. “We are giving you an assurance that the old bad days of what used to be called the syndicate raj will no longer be there,” said Dasgupta.
