He said three partners - the West Bengal Government, the Tatas and Purnendu Chatterjee of the Chatterjee Group - met here recently to discuss the future restructuring of the company. "But we could not come to any decision. We will meet again very soon".

"We want IOC's involvement in a big way. It will help us. We have to set up a committee to study IOC's involvement", he said. Asked whether IOC would be taken as an equity partner, the Chief Minister said this was being discussed. The idea was to involve IOC.

Denying that the project was heading into a financial crisis, he said HPL had just started commercial production and the quality of products was better than that of any other unit in the country. "Things are progressing well and we have a definite marketing strategy", he said.

Stating that West Bengal had crossed the take-off stage as far as industrialisation was concerned, the Chief Minister said the state was yet to make a substantial turn-around. "We are competiting with other states and things are moving very fast", he said.

The Chief Minister denied opposition allegations that the state government was speaking about industrialisation as Assembly elections were around the corner, and said the new Industrial policy was announced long back in 1994. He said the state could attract "important players" in the IT sector. Japanese companies, besides SEMA and Wipro, and other computer software companies would set up units in the state. "Hundreds of applications are coming", he said. Plots were being allotted to these companies on the EM Bypass. "We have to open a second sector for alotting land to other companies", Mr Bhattacharjee said.

Asserting that the industrial scenario must be changed in the state, the Chief Minister said the pace of industrialisation would have to be stepped up.