After a gap of nearly five years, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has visited a foreign country to attract investments. On a 12-day-long visit to Spain and the United Arab Emirates, Ms. Banerjee is joined by prominent industrialists from West Bengal along with key government officials in an effort to draw business to the State.
The visit is timed a month ahead of the Bengal Global Business Summit (BGBS) scheduled in November 2023, the last business summit in the State before the Lok Sabha polls of 2024. For the past several years Trinamool Congress leadership has been keen to promote West Bengal as an industry destination. However, the efforts have borne little fruits on the ground.
Also Read | Mamata highlights Bengal’s welfare schemes in Spain to draw investment
While addressing a gathering of business leaders at Madrid in Spain, Ms. Banerjee tried to promote West Bengal as an industrial destination by saying that it is a power surplus State and boasts skilled manpower. The Chief Minister emphasised more on the social welfare schemes of the West Bengal Government like ‘Kanyashree’ and ‘Lakshmir Bhandar’ rather than the industrial climate of the State.
While the Chief Minister’s visit saw her playing musical instruments with the busker on the streets of Madrid or going to a jog with the entire entourage has generated a lot of attention across both political circles, there have hardly been any major investment proposals from Spain so far. The key MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) also involves for Publishers & Booksellers Guild (organisers of International Kolkata Book Fair) and the Madrid Book Fair, Spain for the promotion and marketing of books and as well as an MoU to set up a La Liga Academy for Bengal.
In the past 12 years that Ms. Banerjee has been in power, her government has organised six Bengal Global Business Summit (BGBS). The 7th edition of Bengal Global Business Summit is scheduled on November 21-22, in Kolkata. According to the West Bengal Government the last BGBS summit held in 2022, a total of 137 MOUs, Letters of Intent (LoI) and Expressions of Interest (EoI) towards investment proposals of ₹3,42,375 crores were signed which has a potential of generating an employment for over 40 lakh people.
Despite these announcements by the government, the on ground investment has hardly seen a boost in the State. Because of lack of employment in the State, millions of workers continue to migrate to other regions for work. About 103 passengers, mostly migrant workers from the State going to work in the southern States, were among those killed in the horrific Odisha train accident on June 2. Similarly, almost all the 23 victims at an under-construction railway bridge in Mizoram‘s Aizawl district were from State’s Malda district. These accidents are a reminder of the deplorable situation of unemployment and migration in the State. There is also a high dependence of the population on the State’s welfare schemes, particularly the cash incentive schemes.
However, since the time of the Singur land agitation in 2007 the need for industry was felt among the people. The Trinamool Congress leadership which catapulted itself to power riding on the wave of the protest against forcible land acquisition wants to change its anti-industry image and the foreign visits by the Chief Minister and the Bengal Global Business Summits are an attempt at exactly that.
Political scientist Biswanath Chakraborty said that visit of Chief Minister is more a ‘political visit’ projecting her social and economic achievements in the State. “This visit does not have the possibility of attracting investments to the State. Moreover, I also don’t think that the visit is routed through diplomatic channels and the Embassy of India in Spain has nothing to do with it,” Prof Chakraborty, who teaches political science at Rabindra Bharati University, said.
He also added that there has been a tradition in the past that Chief Ministers of the State visited foreign countries and visits should be looked in that perspective. The tagline of BGBS over the past few years has been ‘Bengal Means Business’ and it is imperative that West Bengal, once an industrial hub, attracts investments which can stop the huge labour migration out of the State.
