Mamata to leave for Germany & Italy tour on Sept 16

Kolkata: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will set out for her tour to Germany and Italy on September 16, to bring more investments to Bengal.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said: "We don't

prefer to tour abroad much, unlike some other Chief Ministers who go out of the

country 15 to 20 times a year. Some even have their own aircraft. But we need to go abroad once a year for the sake of Bengal and to bring in more business."

"We organise Bengal Global Business Summit (BGBS) every year. Representatives from around 40 countries attend the BGBS. They also request us to visit their countries. They might also not take it in a right way if we do not accept their invitation," Banerjee said, adding that she will be holding one meeting at Frankfurt in Germany and another at Milan in Italy.

She further said that Italy is famous for its leather goods manufacturing industry. Bengal is also coming up as the number one state in the same sector in the country and now, many factories from Lucknow are shifting to Bengal.

She said that there was an investment proposal of Rs 9.5 lakh crore in the BGBS and investment of Rs 3.60 lakh crore is already getting implemented.

"A big team from Germany attended the BGBS and they had also invited us to visit their country," Banerjee said, adding that there was also requests for visiting Poland. The state Power minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay had gone there.

Debashis Sen, Additional Chief Secretary of the state IT and Electronics department, will be going to Silicon Valley. Banerjee, who will set out for her tour on September 16, will return to Kolkata on September 28.

She further said that a group of ministers (GoM) and a committee of officers are being constituted to deal with any emergency situation and natural calamity in the state, during her visit to Frankfurt and Milan.

She said: "We will always be available over phone. But the GoM will be able to tackle the situation here with proper coordination with the committee of officers, in case there is any emergency."

There are eleven ministers in the GoM, including state Education minister Partha Chatterjee, Urban Development and Municipal Affairs minister Firhad Hakim, Transport minister Suvendu Adhikari and Irrigation minister Saumen Mahapatra. Meanwhile, there are 15 senior officials of different departments in the Committee of Officers.

In connection with natural calamities like flood, she said that there has been heavy rainfall in China and the water is entering Bhutan and then Alipurduar and Jalpaiguri. Similarly, water flows into the state from neighbouring states like Jharkhand as well.