Date:04/07/2009 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/07/04/stories/2009070457620100.htm

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Bengal package with an eye on polls

Special Correspondent

KOLKATA: With the Assembly elections in West Bengal two years away, the somewhat generous package for the State proposed on Friday by Union Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee -- who is also the head of the Trinamool Congress, the principal Opposition party in the State -- in her budget proposals for 2009-20 comes as no surprise.

Not to be missed in Ms. Banerjee’s budget speech was mention of the slogan “ma, mati, manush” – one coined by her and which had become an integral part of her rhetoric while campaigning for the April-May Lok Sabha elections in which her party registered resounding successes in the State.

Besides her package for West Bengal containing a slew of proposals that include introducing new trains in the State, extension of metro railway services in the city to the suburbs, improving rail connectivity and development of certain railway stations to international standards, Ms. Banerjee’s suggestion of utilising a “railway land bank” for industrial purposes is significant particularly in view of the stand she had taken against the acquisition of farmland for industry.

The “railway land bank” referred to by Ms. Banerjee could be viewed not only as her response to the move by the Left Front government in the State to set up a land bank of its own for setting up industry.

It is also aimed at countering her critics who have been arguing that the industrialisation drive has suffered because of her agitation against farmland acquisition in a State where the land pattern is characterised by its intensiveness.

Not only has Ms. Banerjee proposed take-over of the sick wagon-manufacturing public sector units Burn Standard and Braithwaite Company Ltd. in the State and for which her ministry will be seeking a waiver on accumulated liabilities, she also announced plans to set up a coach factory at Kanchrapara in the State’s North 24 Parganas district on a private-public partnership basis with an annual capacity of manufacturing 500 electrical multiple units (EMUs), mainline electrical multiple units (MEMU) and metro coaches.

Ms. Banerjee has proposed extension of the eastern freight corridor between Ludhiana and Kolkata to Dankuni in Hooghly district – a region where she had earlier opposed farmland acquisition for industry.

There was reference to the troubled Lalgarh area where Maoists have been active in recent months as Ms. Banerjee proposed setting up of a 1,000-MW power plant at Adra in adjoining Purulia district that would help in bringing tribals of the region that includes Lalgarh into the mainstream and create employment opportunities for them.