West Bengal: For 5th Time, BGBS Ends as Damp Squib; Earlier Promised Projects yet to Take off

Kolkata: The Bengal Global Business Summit (BGBS) has once again proved to be a costly affair for the state exchequer, announcing investments worth crores in the form of memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with corporates, which, in terms actual projects, are a far cry, as seen in the earlier four summits.

In 2015, after the BGBS summit, the state government had announced MoUs worth Rs 2.43 crore, in 2016, the signed amount was Rs 2.50 crore, in 2017, it was of Rs 2.35 crore, in 2018, Rs  2.19 crore and in 2019, the total sum of the MoUs signed was Rs 2.85 crore.

In 2022, the West Bengal government has announced that 137 MoUs have been signed, worth Rs 3.42 crore. But the BGBS press note is silent about the rate of actual conversion of these MOUs into projects in the state.

The BGBS, which was recently inaugurated by West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankar, in the absence of any Central Minister, saw the participation of over 500 international delegates spanning 42 countries.  West Bengal will see an employment potential of over 4 million if these MoUs materialise, said Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, at the concluding session of BGBS. 

In the run-up to the summit, several new portals were launched by the West Bengal government, such as the revamped Shilpa Sathi portal, export facilitation portal, state portal for online exhibitions, and the Nijashwini portal for self-help groups.  Interestingly, the  making of  a  temple costing over Rs 700 crore in Mayapur by the Jindal group, where an already huge Iskon temple stands, has been tomtommed  as a success of this year’s business summit .

Entrepreneur Gautam Adani, too, joined BGBS this year. He was present on both days and announced an investment of Rs 10,000 crore with an employment potential of 25,000 in the state through the yet to be announced projects.

In the last business summit, too, the Adani group had made such assurances about investment in West Bengal. However, nothing is yet known about the Tajpur seaport project, for which bids were opened recently. It is learnt that the Adani group has been the L1 or the highest bidder. 

Another project which gets tomtommed every year by the state government concerns starting a second campus in the state by Wipro, whose scion Rishad Premji was present in BGBS. Incidentally, it was about 12 years ago that the erstwhile Left Front government under Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had allotted land for Wipro’s second campus. After the change of government in the state, in every BGBS there is talk about this new campus, but it is yet to take off.

It may be recalled that in 2009, the then Opposition leader Mamata Banerjee had started a movement, leading to violence, for shunting out the proposed Tata Nano automobile factory from Singur. Later, industrialist Ratan Tata had said that Mamata Banerjee had “put a gun” on his head and “pulled the trigger”, which forced him to relocate the Nano factory in Gujarat’s Sanand.

This event had dealt a blow to potential investment prospects in West Bengal, something from which the state has been unable to come out of.

However, in the business summit, Banerjee, in a bid to endear herself  to industrialists, said she had stopped all sorts of strikes in West Bengal and projected this as one of her “achievements”.

Talking  to NewsClick on the latest BGBS, Indranil Dasgupta, a well-known economist and professor at the Indian Statistical Institute,  said there was nothing to rejoice about in the just concluded summit. There is not a single word in the business summit about the Tajpur Port, whose bid was opened just about a month ago and Adani was said to be the largest bidder.  Small proposals like Rs 200-500 crore keep coming in the normal course and there is no need for holding any business summit to attract such proposals, he said.

“These seem to be pretty standard proposals and do not require such a big bash,” Dasgupta said, adding that there was not a single word about Deucha Pachami, on whether the (coal mining) project will take off or not. There has been no statement from the government whatsoever.

On Wipro setting up its second campus, Dasgupta said: “We have been hearing this for the last 10 years or so. It was Buddhadeb Bhattacharya who gave the land to Wipro.  Every BGBS comes and goes, but nothing happens on this proposal.  I shall be happy if things start moving now but I will believe only when I see it.”

“Also, the Chatterjee Group has put forth a proposal for setting up of a university for frontier technologies in the state. Though this will take time to materialise, it is an exciting offer,” he added.

Dasgupta also said that BGBS will make no difference in the state until the basic structural problems are addressed, such as the problem of land acquisition, problems extortion by ruling party hooligans, and bad infrastructure. He pointed out that amongst the large states, the  proportion of West Bengal’s budget spending on infrastructure, especially on industrial infrastructure, was the lowest in the country.  

Sukhbilas Barma, former IAS officer and finance secretary of the state, told NewsClick that what took place in last year’s BGBS will happen this year, too. “In big bashes, industrialists only give assurances. Nothing fruitful ever comes out of it.  The condition of the state is really dismal where high court judges’ chambers are gheraoed for giving judgement against the state government in rampant corruption cases. Audits do not take place in all government projects and new recruitment of permanent nature has been frozen. In these circumstances, when extortion is rampant, who will come and invest?” he said.

Commenting on BGBS, Ishita Mukhopadhyay,  professor of economics in Calcutta University, questioned the missing industrial or investment policy of the state government.

As long as there is no investment policy of the state government and the ease of doing business, no industry will come to West Bengal and invest, she told NewsClick, adding that Gautam Adani or Mehul Choksi do not have any prior track record of creating employment for people wherever they have gone to do business.

"Both the state and Central government keep mentioning the Tajpur port. Why was there no mention of Tajpur port in BGBS? Also, the Chief Minister regularly announces the setting up of various industries at various places in the state,  whose reflection was not seen in the BGBS. Actually, new employment opportunities through industrialisation under this government is a far cry,” she added.

The Chief Minister has not done any audit about her previous year’s announcements about employment creation through BGBS. The summit is funded by taxpayer money and is proving to be a useless exercise every year, Mukhopadhyay said.