Chinese PSU Zhongtong plans Rs 250 Cr bus manufacturing facility in Bengal

A Chinese PSU is coming up with a bus manufacturing unit in Bengal Aerotropolis airport city project at Andal in Burdwan.

The standing committee of the Cabinet on industry, infrastructure and employment cleared the unit on Friday. The matter would now be placed before the state Cabinet.

The unit would be set up by Zhongtong, a bus manufacturing company, on 15 acres of land in the industrial hub of the airport city. There will be an initial investment of Rs 250 crore and after five years this would rise to Rs 1500 crore.

The buses would be termed as Bengal Zhongtong Bus and the company plans to manufacture 1,500 buses per year. The unit plans to start functioning from next year and the first bus is likely to roll out from the factory by October 2016.

 

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WB Industry Minister holds meeting on smart cities with Bengaluru capatains of industries

The West Bengal government’s plans for six theme-based greenfield townships received a welcome boost as WB Finance and Industries Minister Dr Amit Mitra met technology biggies at the IT capital of India and chalked out a formula to bring in a synergy with smarter solutions for the developers.

“Town-makers and developers want smarter solutions to their big projects, while IT majors wish to get involved with the new townships. We, the government, would tell them to work together and create real smart and thematic townships–futuristic cities with sustainable solutions,“ Dr Mitra said.

Dr Mitra on Tuesday met tech honchos of 24 companies, such as Cisco, HP, PwC, Accenture and 3M, at the American Chamber of Commerce in Bangalore. Cisco is claimed to have evinced interest in investing in e-schooling, eHealth and street lighting in the theme-based township projects.

The six townships, Agnibina, Sports City , Teesta, Uttam City, Gitabitan and Samriddhi, will be put on the block through e-auction and global tendering process. A consortium of developers rom the UK, Europe, Saudi Arabia, Brazil and some private equi y players firms are interested in nvesting in intelligent and lowcost housing. “Almost all will go to Global Bengal Summit,“ Dr Mitra said. The developers’ consortium, represented by S Yasir Rizvi of Canopy and Ricardo Gontijo of Directional, told they would hold a recce during the Summit.

Dr Mitra said 250-odd entrepreneurs attended the meetings on Tuesday. He said 70 Karnataka firms and others will discuss investing in Bengal in the next few months and at the summit.

T V Mohandas Pai roped in by WB Govt to draft startup policies

Infosys co-founder and IT industry stalwart T V Mohandas Pai will take the leading role in drafting a policy to encourage build and nurture a conducive environment for startups and entrepreneurs in the sector in Bengal.

Pai has proposed a target of building as many as 10,000 startups in the state in 10 years, generating around $50 billion business. Latching onto Pai’s pitch, state finance, industry, commerce and IT minister Dr Amit Mitra requested him to take charge and formulate a comprehensive startup policy for Bengal.

On the sidelines of the Investment Roadshow for the Bengal Global Business Summit in Bengaluru, Pai, “I will wait for the Bengal government’s next proactive step. We have to sit with the government and other authorities. Let them come up with some concrete measures and I will definitely pitch in with ideas.“

At the roadshow organized by industry body Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry, Dr Mitra said, “The government has always encouraged technocrats and industry experts to take lead. And, I wish Mohan Bhai to take the leadership. I am assuring him that the government will do its best to fulfil the target by five years. Mr Pai will send us a draft policy on the startup soon.“ He promised to make Bengal the startup capital of the country. According to Pai, startup will be the most vibrant and buzzing sector of the economy. “By 2025, there will be one hundred thousand startups operating in India, generating a business of a staggering $500 billon. West Bengal, with its 93 million people–most of them making a talent pool–can’t lag behind in the race. Imagine the number of jobs that would be created, if you count 35 peoples’ employment involved with one startup,“ said Pai, who is currently the chairman of Manipal Global Education Services.

Pai also urged the state IT minister to come up with or arrange for initial funding for the budding startup space: “The state government needs to set up Rs 1,000 crore angel fund for the seed capital.“ Replying to it, the state finance minister said in the last state budget, the government earmarked Rs 200 crore for the fresh entrepreneurs.

According to Pai, who has become a pioneer in investing, advising and nurturing startups in India and across the globe, startups do not mean something dealing in pure IT jobs only. “They can work in life science, 3D printing, stem cells, and robotics. So, high-quality, Wi-fi equipped digital infrastructure for the common man and a policy to back vibrant enterprises are the need of the hour. Kolkata, once called the east of London, is moving towards it. The road map lies there,“ Pai signed off.

Taking a cue from Pai, Dr Mitra announced that the government would organize Startup Bengal Global Summit this year under the umbrella of Bengal Global Summit, January 8-9. “We needed a mentor, such as Mr Pai, to push us to a new frontier,“ he said.

CM invites captains of industry to invest in Bengal

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today said the negative publicity of the state was probably due to poor financial status of her party Trinamool Congress.

“There is negative publicity about the state despite its progress on all fronts. This may be due to the fact that we are poorest of the poor party,” she said at the CII National Council meet here.

She said, “This is a democratic right (for those who say it) and I can’t challenge that.”

Inviting the captains of Indian industry who converged here at the CII meet here, the chief minister’s narrative ranged from progress on economic parameters to increased industrial investments taking place in the state.

“Land is available with us in the land bank which is being used to provide for new cities and industrial parks,” she said.

No forcible acquisition of land

The Chief Minister said that she was against taking away land forcibly from farmers and advocated that the input should be purchased directly.

“It is our policy not to bulldoze or evict farmers or forcibly buy land from them.We have a land bank of 7,400 acres spread from Asansol to Kalyani. We also have land in Raghunathpur, Kharagpur and Panagarh. I know there is some issue with the land ceiling which doesn’t allow a person to keep land above 24 acres. But if you have a large parcel of land, you can form a group of three or four or more and keep the land,“ she said.

Helpline number for industry

Companies like SAIL, DVC and NTPC were investing in West Bengal, she said and welcomed investments to the state.

She gave the helpline number saying that any problem faced would be sorted out by just giving her a call.

She also invited the CII members to attend the global business meet to be held here in January.

Praise from captains of industry

The Chief Minister got local impetus when city businessmen Sanjeev Goenka and Y C Deveshwar praised the ease of doing business here.

Godrej Group chairman Adi Godrej said: “Land is no longer an issue now. The CM is trying her best. I believe things have started moving in the state.“ Apollo Hospitals vicepresident Shobana Kamineni also appreciated the move.

“We had a very good interaction with her,“ she said. Sanjiv Goenka, too, added that the interaction with the CM was “very inspiring“.

President designate of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Noushad Forbes held that things are “now moving in Bengal.“

Bengal and Bhutan to be ‘Business Partners’

Agnivo Niyogi | Thimphu

West Bengal Chief Minister Ms Mamata Banerjee today said that Bengal and Bhutan will become ‘business partners’ after a meeting His Excellency The King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck.

She said that in a meeting with the PM earlier she said consented to Bengal being used as a corridor for Bhutan to export potatoes and dolomite.

The issue of flooding in north Bengal was taken up in her meeting with the King; His Majesty assured the Bengal CM that a committee will be set up to investigate whether flooding of north Bengal is because of natural or technical reasons.

The Chief Minister said that a series of discussions happened across various sectors from agro-marketing to tourism and transport. She said the King was extremely happy to have learned that Bengal Govt has started an LTC scheme for employees wherein a trip to Bhutan would be included.

Earlier in the day the transport secretary, in the presence of CM, had said that Bhutan Airlines was keen on strengthening air-ties with Bengal and was interested in making Andal a pit stop for flights to Bangkok.

The secretaries of various departments, business delegates from India and Bhutan attended the India-Bhutan Business Conclave for the second day today.

Jindal praises Mamata Banerjee, to invest Rs 2700 crore in Bengal

Sajjan Jindal-led JSW Group on Thursday announced its intention to revive its Salboni project. The company initially plans to set up a 2.4MT cement grinding unit followed by a 300MW captive power plant at Salboni, involving a total investment of Rs 2,700 crore, the JSW chairman announced on the sidelines of a seminar organized by Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Jindal also met chief minister Mamata Banerjee and proposed to lay the foundation stone of the cement plant in January 2016. JSW will invest Rs 700 crore in the cement plant. According to Jindal, the company would need only 150 acres to set up the cement plant and another 100 for the power plant. “We’ll start the process for the power plant after three months,” he added.

Jindal was also all praise for Mamata Banerjee, saying Bengal is one of the best places to set up industry. “The present government under the leadership of Didi is giving full support to industry. I am getting a very positive vibe now,” he said.

Good macro, infra push drawing business to Bengal: Dr Amit Mitra

Private investment comes when you have infrastructure development, West Bengal Finance and Industry Minister  Dr Amit Mitra said in a recent interview, adding that capital expenditure has risen more than six-fold to Rs 13,325 crore since the time Trinamool Congress came to power in 2011. An improving macro environment and infrastructure development are the two factors attracting industry to West Bengal, he said.

Excerpts of the interview:

Q: You have been reaching out to investors across the country as well as in foreign countries, UK was your first destination I understand, soon you will be visiting the US. You talked about ‘the future begins in West Bengal’ and a lot of data has been put together, I am looking at the data that has been supplied by the West Bengal government as well as the Central Statistical Office (CSO). At gross value added (GVA), the West Bengal growth rate has come in about 10.48 percent for FY14-15. The agriculture and allied sector growth is much higher than the national average at 6.46 percent, services growing at about 12 percent, industry at 8 percent per capita at almost 13 percent. If you can give us a sense of how much you have been able to draw in by way of private investment because the story is looking better on several parameters as I have just pointed out but what has that resulted in terms of private investment into the state?

A: I think private investment comes when you have certain parameters meet. The first of which of course is macroeconomic parameter, which have so succinctly summed up for us for the state, data coming from the centre. Second of course is the private investment comes when you have infrastructure development. Now you would be happy to know that the growth in infrastructure — it is phenomenal, so I will give you the exact number, say for example state plan expenditure which goes into various forms of things that industry gives that has grown by 311 percent in the last four years, which is a record of sorts. More interesting is that capital expenditure from where you had roads, bridges etc that has gone up by 601 percent. To give you the exact figure, Rs 2,225 crore when we came to office, it is Rs 13,325 crore now. So industry looks forward to capital expenditure both in human capital, social infrastructure and physical infrastructure. Now all this is the backdrop to the fact that companies after companies are now expanding. I will give you two quick examples — Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has got 40 acres of land on which they are building for 20,000 additional IT professional. Now you go to manufacturing — Tata Metaliks , which is located in one of our parks, has just asked us few weeks ago for another 300 acres in our own park for expansion. You take the case of Anil Ambani’s group, a Rs 600 crore investment in a cement plant. You will be interested to know we are now just probably going into production in the largest fertiliser plant — not only eastern India probably among the largest in the country Matix, which is a sister body to Essar Group, they have put on the ground Rs 6,500 crore and now moving to Rs 8,000 crore, that is over a billion US dollars. Very next to it is the HR Johnson tiles and I was so happy in Delhi when Ashok Kajaria came to the meeting and said I am going to go and do tiles and great thing was tiles uses gas.

Q: Is there a cumulative number? You have given us several instances of companies that are now either hiking their plans in West Bengal or putting in fresh investment, is there a number over the last four years of what you have been able to do?

A: Absolutely. There is a number and I said it on the floor of the assembly, which means I can be eligible for privileged motion if I don’t say rightly. Till last month, the total — since we came to office — is Rs 87,000 crore, which is either completed or in the process of completion. So the examples I have given you are only indications of this Rs 87,000 crore by the way this is only medium and large industries. I will give you example from small industries. We may have as many as 52,000 additional small and medium enterprises over the last four years, number of clusters have grown from 48 to over 300, they are very labour intensive, creates many more jobs.

Q: Since you are talking about labour let me bring to you attention the World Bank report. You have come in at the 11th position as far as the overall state ranking is concerned, percentage wise on the 90th parameters that the World Bank has assessed states, you have come at a little under 47 percent. A lot of work needs to be done as per that report. Acceleration required on a whole bunch of parameters, for instance single window clearance and I know the government has made the attempt to go in for single window clearance through your Shilpa Sathi program. Other areas where they believe acceleration is required, for instance on e-courts and so on and so forth but on one front they have very clearly acknowledged the work that has been done by your government and that is as far as tax related norms but using technology concerned and you are one of the three states that has been able to move that, the e-taxation. What do you make of the report and what more can we expect in terms of the areas where the World Bank report says more needs to be done?

A: We need to understand what is the methodology. Number two, the DIPP came to Kolkata, we did not see the World Bank guys. So, we would like to know from the Bank as to what is the contribution that the bank made. If we are short somewhere, if we are weak somewhere we will rectify it but our e-taxation is number one, we got the highest award in the country given by the central government in Gandhinagar. Therefore I don’t see why we are 11, I am sure there are reasons, I would like to study them. Q: Political reasons you believe? A: I don’t know. The top 5 states I find are probably all from one political perspective, may be they are doing well.

Q: With the exception of Andhra Pradesh.

A: Andhra Pradesh is also an NDA state don’t forget but that is okay. I am not going to make this into a political debate. The point is ideally I would like to know the methodology from which we will arrive at where we are weak, where we are strong and whether we are strong has been weighted correctly. The trick to this is how you weight it. So, I would not like to dispute this without having the methodology in front of me.

Q: Irrespective of what the World Bank says, let us talk about the road ahead because you yourself have acknowledged that more work needs to be done to draw in private investment and to get the business climate to be a lot more robust. What more can we expect for instance as far as labour reforms are concerned? Land is not an issue as per your government, you believe that you have 4500 acres that is available with physical infrastructure for the taking if private sector wants it. What can we expect at least on issues like land, labour and so on and so forth.

A: What is interesting is as far as land is concerned, you have said 4500 crore which is in our own parks – ready to go but in addition we have a lakh acres with different departments of the government which can be availed for industry. For example, just now the animal husbandry department has given over 300 acres to the industry department – West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation to develop an industrial park. So, the land bank as Mamata Banerjee has repeatedly said consists of one lakh acres along with of course a developed infrastructure land which is 4400 plus another 4000 under infrastructure construction. So, as far as land is concerned this is a red herring. In West Bengal there is no problem with land, whoever has lost the land gas got it immediately. The second question which you have asked how we are going to improve ourselves further? There is no end to improvement, we should be world class, we should be competitive. You would be happy to know that in a month and a half or so you will see something which I would like to keep as a mystery.

Pepsico to invest Rs 500 Cr in Bengal: Labour Minister

World renowned company Pepsico is investing in Bengal on a large scale.

The company has decided to invest Rs 500 crore to set up a large manufacturing unit at Asansol, Labour Minister Moloy Ghatak said.

As per the instructions of the Chief Minister, Pepsico has been allotted 40 acres of land already at Dharma mouza. Employment opportunities for 2500 people have been created initially, with scope of further employment in the future.

Labour Minister said that at the initiative of West Bengal CM, the government now gives speedy land clearance to investment proposals. He said the departments of land & land reforms and industry are coordinating in ensuring ease of doing business in the State.

Companies like Pepsico are investing in Bengal because of the new Industry Policy formulated at the initiative of WB CM, the minister opined.

 

This is based on a report published in Sangbad Pratidin on 15 September, 2015

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WB Govt to tap 1 lakh acres of government land for industry

West Bengal is planning to tap over one lakh acres of land available with the government in a bid to woo investors to the state.

State Finance, Industries and Commerce Minister Dr Amit Mitra said: “We are pro-poor and pro-business. Bengal is one case where reality is significantly better than perception. The question of land acquisition doesn’t arise. The government and its various departments have over one lakh acres of ready land, which we have decided to give to business houses to set up industries.“

Dr Mitra was in Mumbai for a road show to promote ‘Bengal Global Business Summit 2016’ to be held in Kolkata in January 2016.

“Land will not be a problem in West Bengal. WBIDC has 4,400 acres of ready land under its possession for industrial development. This is apart from the land for 6 townships in the state. Another 4000 acres of land will be made available soon,” the finance minister said.

The rest of its land bank is available with various government departments spread all over the state.

“Come and make money, come where the rising curve is happening,” said Dr Mitra, highlighting the growth benefits of investing in the state.

Among the key features offered to investors include land for greenfield projects, industrial parks and smart public administration.

Group of Ministers constituted to identify and reclaim closed industry land

The West Bengal Government has decided to step up its efforts to reclaim 285 acres of land acquired by public sector firm Cycle Corporation of India, at Asansol.

The decision was taken at the third meeting of the Group of Ministers (GoM) constituted to identify and reclaim land acquired by closed industrial units.

As per the findings of the GoM, of the 49,000 acres of land acquired by closed industrial units in Bengal, only about 7,500 acres are deemed non-litigant (not mired in litigations) by the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR).

As per preliminary findings of the panel, the land held by the Cycle Corporation of India does appear to be litigation-free.However, to be absolutely certain that the piece of land in question isn’t mired in litigation problems, the GoM, today (Thursday), set up a separate panel comprising directors, commissioners or joint secretaries of five state government departments, namely law, land, industrial reconstruction, agriculture and labour.

The panel will probe the current status of the land held by the Cycle Corporation of India and submit its report (to the GoM) on September 29, 2015,” the cabinet member said.

 

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