Even as West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is striving to woo the industry through her first investors’ meet, the Trinamool Congress chief has not extended an invitation to Ratan Tata, chairman of the nearly Rs 4-lakh crore Tata Group.
“While directors and members of several Tata Group companies have been invited, no invitation has been sent to Ratan Tata,” said an official in the ministry of commerce and industries.
The list of invitees includes Reliance Industries Chairman and MD Mukesh Ambani, Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) Chairman Anil Ambani, JSW Steel Vice-Chairman and MD Sajjan Jindal, Godrej Group Chairman Adi Godrej, Sahara Chairman Subrata Roy and Hindustan Motors Chairman C K Birla.
Of the big-ticket national investors, Adi Godrej is the only one to have confirmed participation. “Godrej will attend in his capacity as president designate of CII,” said a Godrej Group spokesperson.
While Mukesh will send a representative, local officials of ADAG have confirmed that Anil Ambani has no plans of travelling to the city tomorrow.
Sajjan Jindal, is also not attending. “He was travelling till Saturday, not sure whether he is back,” an official close to the development said. JSW Steel’s 10 million tonne project happens to be Bengal’s biggest investment at Rs 35,000 crore.
This also signifies that Banerjee will have to make do with local industrialists. In fact, a large percentage of expected attendees will be Kolkata-based businessmen including CESC Vice-Chairman Sanjiv Goenka, Keventer Group Chairman Mahendra Jalan and Ambuja Realty Chairman Harsh Neotia.
ITC Chairman Y C Deveshwar might attend if he is in town, said an ITC spokesperson, but added there was a possibility that he might not be in town. Ruia Group Chairman Pawan Ruia, who is out of the country, will also give the event a miss.
The meet will be the first of its kind to be organised in the state, which has in the past been known as the bastion of trade unionism. Notably, among others, Gujarat, Karnataka and Bihar have conducted some of the most successful investors’ meets in the recent past.
It will also be significant for the fulfilment of Banerjee’s ambitions to turn “Kolkata into London”, a dream that requires significant investment.
The new land policy guidelines, which were announced last week, have drawn flak from the India Inc. According to the new guidelines, the government will not assist industry in acquiring land for private projects.
Earlier, Partha Chatterjee, West Bengal Commerce and Industries Minister, had said that 137 industrialists had confirmed participation for Saturday’s event.
Tomorrow’s investors’ meet will be held at the end of a week that took the Singur episode to the next level with the West Bengal government passing the Singur Rehabilitation and Development Bill in the legislative assembly, taking back the entire land (997 acres) allocated to Tata Motors’ Nano project at Singur.
With the Bill, the state government revoked the agreement between Tata Motors and the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) without any kind of consultation with the company.
Tata Group spokespersons could not confirm the development. Tata’s exclusion from the list of invitees is more pronounced given the fact that invitations have been extended to 200-odd local and national industry stalwarts.
Banerjee and Ratan Tata share a history that dates back to 2006, when she spearheaded the agitation against land acquisition in Singur, which ultimately led to the pullout of the Nano project in October 2008.
This week however, tensions reached a new pinnacle when Tata Motors’ expressed its displeasure about the Singur Bill, which faults the company with “non-commissioning” and “abandoning” while carefully excluding the reasons.
“Directors from local Tata Group offices may attend the meet tomorrow, but there is no confirmation from executives from the national team,” the official said.
Adversarial sentiments have triumphed over the need for investment in debt-ridden West Bengal.
