Industry must for creation of new jobs in Bengal

Kolkata, July 9 (UNI) West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today said industrialisation of the state was must for creating employment opportunities for future generations and assured that the people displaced from land would be rehabilitated.

He said the government now can not go back from its commitment of having four new steel industrial units and a power plant at Katowa in Burdwan district. He said for this the NH 34 was being widened.

The chief minsiter said the state has about one crore 35 acres of agricultrual land, of them only one per cent was fallow land compared to 17 per cent in the country. He said the state needed some one lakh acres of land for industrialisation, which was only one per cent.

Referring to the acquired land at Singur and would be acquired at Katowa and Siliguri, he said all efforts would be taken so that land losers were given for proper support for living.

Referring to proposed steel factory at Salboni by Jindal group, he said local people will have tremendous employment opportunity there, besides compensation for land.

Mr Bhattacharjee said if the proposed chemical hub at Haldia was established, it could create job opportunities for some one lakh people as setting up one textile unit and three rubber plants were being proposed besides many ancillary units.

The chief minister was addresssing a function after laying the foundation stone for rehabilitation of shopkeepers, whose sites were taken for widening of roads at Raja SP Mallick road in south Kolkata.

UNI