KOLKATA: Bengal signed a number of MoUs with various industries since Mamata Banerjee took charge as chief minister in May 2011, but hardly any of these has graduated to a level where industries have filed Industrial Entrepreneur Memorandum (IEMs) to the ministry of commerce and industries specifying the project, its location, land availability and quantum of investment.
In fact, Bengal doesn't figure anywhere in IEMs across the country for 2012-13, a study by the department of industrial policy promotion states.
According to the study, an investor and the Union government have to go through a series of formalities before setting up of a unit. Signing of the MoU is the first stage, the second one being the IEM, followed by a Letter of Intent (LoI) issued by the Centre setting certain conditions that the investor has to meet within a three-year period. These include site clearance from the state government and setting up of pollution control equipment, among others. Once the investor satisfies the LoI, he approaches the industries ministry for licence.
Bengal couldn't reach the IEM stage because industries signing the MoU didn't get site clearance from the state government in the 2012-13 financial. The reason is they have to approach the state government first and get a land ceiling clearance under Section 14Y of the West Bengal Land Reforms Act before they file the IEM. Quite a few project proposals are lying with the land department for months awaiting clearance though they have been vetted by the state industries department.
The much-debated land lock in post-Singur Bengal came in the way of the Mamata Banerjee government's performance in the industrial arena till March 2013. Going by statistics dished out by the department of industrial policy and promotion — an autonomous body under ministry of commerce and industries — Bengal is nowhere in the IEM map when it occupied the second position with 21% in 2011-12, after Odisha.
A closer look at the performance of states beginning with IEMs to LoIs over a fairly long period, between August 1991 and March 2013, reveals that Bengal has been a laggard along with Odisha and Chattisgarh, where the rate of proposals reaching the final stage is way behind states such as Gujarat, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, where the rate of progress is much higher than Bengal.
Gujarat tops the list of IEMs in 2012-13 followed by Chattisgarh and Maharashtra, and then Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka while Bengal doesn't have a mention. The statistics offered by the central agency doesn't go well with the fact that Bengal has received 70 new investment proposals in the last six months worth Rs 3,710 crore. The study has not taken this into account because none of these has graduated to the stage of IEMs.
Bengal thus, stands eighth in terms of IEMs received after Odisha, Chattisgarh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh.
Meanwhile, state industries minister Partha Chatterjee is not in a mood to accept the study. "The situation has improved in the last three years since Mamata Banerjee took over as chief minister. A total of 33 projects worth Rs 2,042 crore have been implemented in the last three years. According to other reports, IT and industry in Bengal is vastly developing. What is the basis of their statistics?" the minister said.
State officials, however, indicated that the Mamata Banerjee government cleared some of the major projects like Jindal Steel Works (JSW) or the Aerotropolis Project in Durgapur when proposals were floated during the preceding Left Front regime. Moreover, some other IT majors such as Wipro and Infosys have held back their investments in Bengal due to the dispute over the
SEZ status.
It is not without reason that the Mamata Banerjee government has engaged liaison officers to coordinate between different state departments in a bid to expedite project clearance in Bengal. State industries minister also announced in a recent business meet that the state government is trying to bring down the project clearance process within three weeks.
Source : timesofindia.indiatimes.com