WB to drag Centre to court against free foodgrains import

Our Political Bureau

Kolkata, Aug 28: WEST Bengal has decided to take the Union government to court to protest the free import of foodgrains allowed under the clauses of the World Trade Organisation agreement signed by India.

Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee, meeting reporters at a ceremony to mark 100-days of his Left Front government, said he is in talks with like-minded states opposed to the coalition led by the Bharatiya Janata Party at the Centre.

“I am in constant dialogues with some non-BJP state governments and some of them have given consent to our proposal for filing the suit at the Supreme Court,” the chief minister said. He refused to name the states that have sided with West Bengal.

The chief minister said agriculture is a state subject under the Constitution of India, and the Union government should have consulted the states before signing the WTO agreement.

“The agreement will play havoc with the domestic agriculture scenario. So let the Supreme Court decide and we will abide by the verdict passed by it,” he said.

Mr Bhattacharjee said his government has chalked out an ambitious plan to extensively use knowledge-based technologies to develop traditional industries.

“We are concentrating on development of small and medium scale industries like handlooms, sericulture, hosiery and leather, and in all these sectors IT will be used to extensively,” he said.

He said that, although West Bengal has been a late starter in developing the IT sector, it has achieved tremendous progress within a short time. “We have already set up an Indian Institute of Information Technology in the state and five more such centres will be set up shortly,” he added.

Commenting on the state public sector undertakings, he said they have been divided into three categories — those which can be revived by the government, those which can be revived with the help of private parties and those which have no future and need to be closed down.