It is a matter of serious concern that self-serving politicians are derailing industrial development in a big way. Reliance Fresh’s retail stores in Uttar Pradesh were forced to close down by the state government on account of inter-party rivalry between the Samajwadi Party and the BSP, resulting in a loss of jobs for over ten thousand workers employed by the store-chain and hitting thousands of farmers who wanted to sell their produce to the store-chain at prices far better than they were getting in the market mandi.
Allotment of land for a Railway coach factory in the parliamentary constituency of Congress president Sonia Gandhi was abruptly cancelled on the eve of the scheduled foundation stone laying ceremony as Chief Minister Mayawati wanted to teach the Congress Party a lesson for joining hands with the Samajwadi Party.
Mamata Banerjee’s ambitions of getting political mileage over the ruling CPI(M) forced the Tatas to close down the Nano plant in Singur, once again causing large job losses.
And now it appears (‘Land for US-built nuclear plant: Left govt in dilemma’, October15) the Left government in West Bengal doesn’t want to allot land for a nuclear power plant in the state only because the plant is likely to be built by a US firm.
For a state facing the kind of power shortages West Bengal is, you’d think the government would welcome a nuclear plant as this will augment power supplies for both households as well as industries.
Once again, not allowing the nuclear power plant to come up will ensure industry in the state does not develop and will therefore again result in thousands of jobs not getting created. The people of the state should force the government to come out of its quixotic anti-Americanism and rush to the Centre for the power plant.
MC Joshi, Lucknow