West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced that the seventh edition of the Bengal Global Business Summit (BGBS) will be held this year from November 21 to 23, and her government would organise campaigns to attract investments in multiple cities across the country.
Presiding over the West Bengal Industrial Promotional Board meeting at Nabanna Sabhaghar on Wednesday, the chief minister said, “We will be holding this year’s BGBS from November 21-23. Vigorous campaigns and eight to nine padayatras will be held in different states to promote the event. Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) will organise a meeting in Mumbai, and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) can do so in Chennai.”
The chief minister also pointed out that the state, which has been a logistics hub, is also emerging as a data centre.
The investment promotion board meeting saw the participation of several senior bureaucrats led by Chief Secretary H.K. Dwivedi, Industry secretary Vandana Yadav, Tourism secretary Nandini Chakravorty, among others. Ministers and industrialists also attended the meeting, while former state Finance minister Amit Mitra joined the meeting virtually.
Amit Mitra to take charge of Delhi
Banerjee said that she will request Amit Mitra to take care of Delhi virtually and the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) will be in charge of Karnataka, adding that industrialists Umesh Chowdhury, Harsh Neotia and Rudra Chatterjee can take care of meetings in Rajasthan.
Ahead of the summit, the state will hold road shows in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore and Jaipur.
To encourage entrepreneurship, the CM said that young people will be given Rs 5 lakh to start any business under ‘Bhobishyot’ credit card scheme.
She added that over Rs 1.14 lakh crore was invested in the state’s medium, small and micro enterprises (MSME) sector in recent times which will create jobs for over 41 lakh persons.
The TMC chief also announced that Tata-Hitachi will soon shift its factory from Jamshedpur to Kharagpur, while noting that a memorandum of understanding to build a World Trade Centre would be inked on March 21.
Highlighting that 8,000 acres has been identified for acquisition, Banerjee, however, clarified that her government “will not forcibly acquire any land”.
Speaking about the latest initiative to improve the ease of doing business, Chief Secretary HK Dwivedi said that the land parcels would be given on a freehold basis – instead of leasehold – and won’t require buyers to come to the government for permissions.
At the meeting, Dwivedi also pointed out that new policies are being framed to increase freshwater fish production in the state. He said that the government has recently conducted a survey and found out that the state has 12,800 reservoirs.
In the last edition of the BGBS that took place in April 2022, Banerjee claimed to have attracted investment proposals worth Rs 3.42 lakh crore.
In the previous five editions of the summit, a total of Rs 12.35 lakh crore of investment proposals were received, official data showed.