Ashok Lahiri's article "Continuing challenges for West Bengal" (December 24) is a sad commentary on how the Left Front has plundered the once prosperous state to bankruptcy. While the financial health of the state has improved after the Trinamool Congress came to to power, the long tradition of resisting user charge and cost recovery is best exemplified by the Calcutta Tramway Company (CTC), where the fares have remained unchanged since 1922. Such profligacy has played havoc with the institution and CTC had to be nationalised.
The industrial outlook is also depressing. Consider this: the Rs 8,500-crore jute industry is passing through a difficult phase and the problem is exacerbated by the Union government's dilution of the law under which food grain and sugar had to be compulsorily dispatched in jute bags. The law was introduced to protect the livelihoods of jute workers - currently around 300,000 - and four million cultivators. The tea industry is also facing a crisis due to lower productivity and labour unrest. Moreover, no big-ticket plants have come up, mainly because of issues connected with land.
M M Gurbaxani Bengaluru
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