Buddhadeb wants to strike right balance

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Left leader and West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee now wants to strike the right balance. This comes after Reliance Retail was forced to bring its shutters down in the state. CNBC-TV18's Priyanka Chatterjee and Sougata Mukhopadhyay tells us the government is now looking for a compromise formula.

 

Winds of change have made a cautious appearance in Bengal. Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattcharjee has called on the people to accept corporate investment slowly and steadily. Bhattacharjee is confronted with serious opposition from his allies in the Left Front government (and the opposition, regarding the entry of private players in the agri-retail sector. And he says he is working on a compromise formula.

 

"If the big retail shops come in the city, then these people will lose jobs. Based on this problem, I am trying to formulate a compromise formula that we must move the big way for modern market mechanisms for cold storages and cold chains slowly and very cautiously," said Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.

 

But that is not all. Bhattacharjee says that in order to accommodate the IT companies, he is looking for land outside Rajarhat, the hottest IT destination in the outskirts of Kolkata. That is because land at Rajarhat is almost exhausted with IT players. He also plans to modernize the Kolkata Airport by 2010.

 

"Now, I have to go to Kalyani, Durgapur, Haldia and other places for IT players. I am also trying to acquire land in and around the present airport to accommodate IT companies. Americans are coming in a big way," added Bhattacharjee.

 

Modernisation operation on the airport will start from January 2008, next month, and it is almost final. The capacity of handling passengers and cargo will increase 12-15 % after the modernisation. This modernisation will be completed within 2010.

 

In recent times, Bengal has managed to pool in big ticket investments in IT and steel in a big way. But whether the compromise formula to attract investments in large format retailing in agriculture would work for Bengal is still unknown. One will have to watch whether this compromise formula will work for Bengal to attract investment in the argi-retail sector.