“Now let’s stop talking and instead put things into action,” Banerjee told Bengal Inc present at the felicitation event organised by Indian Chamber of Commerce, BNCCI, MCC, FICCI, Assocham, Calcutta Chamber, BCCI, Bharat Chamber along with the district chambers.
In response to the welcome, the Chief Minister said she was against attending felicitation programmes but had accepted the invitation as some industry captains had met her much before the dates of the Assembly polls were announced and invited her to attend the programme. “They did not have any confusion over Trinamool Congress coming back to power and were not affected by the negative propaganda,” she maintained.
Banerjee said she would take the opportunity of her visit to Vatican City to attend canonisation of Mother Teresa on September 4 to attract investment for the state. She said she will try to hold business meetings in the nearby countries, too, to attract investment in auto and manufacturing sector in the state.
Bengal, Banerjee said, is the best industry-friendly destination and is fast growing as its “achievements speaks for itself”.
“Our gross value addition has grown in excess of 10 per cent, while in the country it grew by 7.5 per cent. Industry expanded by 8.3 per cent in the state, while India’s comparable number is 5.3 per cent as Bengal had nil strike and mandays’ loss and revenue generation doubled to Rs 40,000 crore in the last four years,” she said, highlighting her government’s achievements in her last term.
Bengal should not be compared with Maharastra, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu as either they house finance capital or have huge numbers of ports or high revenue income. “We (Bengal) have just two ports and even those have not been dredged. Despite that I have doubled the state’s revenue to Rs 40,000 crore,” she added. Banerjee said she was in favour of short, mid and long term vision, adding, “We should work keeping those goals as targets.”
Her message to the industrialists was “Be fearless and work sincerely.” She asked the industrialists whether they had to pay money during the election. “If you face any problem, fight the battle legally,” she advised the business fraternity. She said the state government had allotted land to set up six townships and asked CREDAI officials to take up the matter with the state Finance minister at the earliest. “No point wasting time. Take a decision and get cracking,” she said adding: “Work sincerely and you will be rewarded.”
Banerjee said that she was in favour of GST as it would help the industrialists.”I will support anything which is pro- people and oppose that which goes against the interest of common man,” she said.
Without naming anyone she said some media houses had a vested interest and deliberately portrayed a gloomy picture of West Bengal. “When I had been to Singapore, many industrialists told me that they had been wrongly briefed about the industrial scenario in Bengal,” she said added.