'Technocrats across India eyeing to invest in Bengal'

kolkata: Technocrats across the country are eyeing Bengal for investment and there is tremendous demand for land at the Bengal Silicon Valley hub in New Town, state Urban Development minister and chairman of West Bengal Housing & Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO) said on Thursday.

"Larsen & Toubro (L&T) has applied for 15 acres of land at Silicon Valley for building IT infrastructure while Adani Enterprises has already been allocated land for setting up a hyper-scale data centre at the same site," Hakim said while inaugurating the 5th Kolkata Garment Expo 2022 at Biswa Bangla Mela Prangan.

"IT major Wipro is also expected to start its project in New Town Action Area III soon. So technocrats from Hyderabad and other states are now coming to Bengal," he added.

The state Cabinet on June 6 gave the approval for allocating 51.75 acres of land to the Adani group for its proposed data centre.

He pointed out that recently L&T had conducted a survey involving its employees and 80 per cent of them had stated that Bengal is the best place to work. He reiterated that the law and order situation in Bengal is better than any other state in the country.

"There was a time when strikes and bandhs would contribute to the loss of lakhs of mandays. But since 2011, after our (Trinamool Congress) government assumed power under the leadership of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee we have ensured that there are zero mandays lost," he added.

The three-day Garment Expo that kicked off on Thursday is being organised by Bangla Readymade Garments Manufacturers and Traders Welfare Association, Kolkata in collaboration with the state MSME & Textiles department.

Rajiva Sinha, chairman of West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) who also was present at the inaugural programme said that over 10 lakh people are directly associated with garment manufacturing in Metiabruz and people from eight to nine districts of Bengal come to work in garment manufacturing area there. "So, the bread and butter of nearly 1 crore people are dependent on the Metiabruz garment cluster which is the world's largest," Sinha said.

The annual turnover only from the Metiabruz cluster is to the tune of Rs 25,000 crore.