Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress’s poll manifesto, issued on Monday, promises all-round development in West Bengal. A 55-page outline of the short-term and long-term agenda if it came to power was also issued.
There would be broad focus on micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), restarting and remodelling of closed state-sector units (PSUs) and the attracting of large-scale private investment in sectors like engineering, steel, tea, jute, textiles and other areas of manufacturing, mining, power and food processing.
Banerjee claimed investment for her proposed resurgence in industry wouldn’t be a problem, as a number of people were ready to invest once the ruling Left Front was voted out.
Creating jobs on a massive scale is a priority. It talks of focus on labor-intensive sectors such as textiles, apparel, leather, jute, tea, handicrafts, entertainment, tourism, gems and jewellery and agro-based industries. Ambitious projects are to be taken for infrastructure building, with focus on state highways, rural roads, ports (including a deep sea one in the Sundarbans), power, airports, waterways, dredging at Haldia and irrigation networks.
A chain of industrial towns, linked, is promised across the state. It promises to ease operations for MSMEs by radically cutting obstructive rules, regulations and permissions. It assures a supportive financial structure for SMEs. And, to expand the present 51 Industrial Training Institutes to 300.
During its first 200 days in government, it says, 17 clusters would be selected to be converted into “world class centres of excellence with focus on cooperation between enterprises and promoting economies of scale”. It has identified Darjeeling, Coochbehar, Malda, Bankura and Hoogly for apparel and readymade garments; Howrah and South 24 Parganas for embroidery and zari work; Kolkata and North 24 Parganas for manufacturing of fans; Howrah and Hoogly for rolling mills; Howrah, Burdwan, Nadia and North 24 Parganas for engineering goods; Jalpaiguri, North Dinajpur, Birbhum, Purulia and Medinipur for agricultural tools and implements; Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Malda, Burdwan, South 24 Parganas, Birbhum and North 24 Parganas for food processing, etc.
The wish list includes a plan for reorganising and modernising tea industries in North Bengal and jute industries in South Bengal in the first 200 days. Where PSUs cannot be revived, the land will be used to set up new industries without compromising the rights of workers. Kolkata airport is to be made comparable to those at Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore. It will also, in the first 200 days, announce the setting up of airports at Malda, Coochbehar, Balurghat, Asansol-Durgapur, Medinipur, Birbhum and Sagar and upgradation of Bagdogra (in Darjeeling district) as an international airport. It talks of a policy to attract private sector investment in healthcare. There will be at least one multi-facility hospital in each subdivision and 10 additional medical colleges in the state.
Politically, it stresses Opposition to a “security-centric” approach to address the Naxal threat in ‘Jangalmahal’ (Purulia, Bankura, Midnapore). It believes all-round development here and in Darjeeling hills will go a long way to ameliorate popular grievances. There is to be no forcible state acquisition of farm land.
Sonia-Mamata pact
Congress president Sonia Gandhi once again showed her willingness to accommodate Union railway minister and Trinamool Congress chief, Mamata Banerjee, over the demands of her own party, at least in the affairs of West Bengal.
After returning from London, she sealed the deal with Banerjee’s party on Monday for the coming Assembly polls, with just one more seat than what the Trinamool chief had offered it last week. She held an hour-long meeting with her political secretary, Ahmed Patel, and later with finance minister Pranab Mukherjee before the Congress announced it was ready to join hands with Banerjee with 65 seats. There was major discontent in the state unit, which had expected the party president to pressurise Banerjee to give more and better seats to the Congress.
