“We have created a high-powered committee with Industry Minister Partha Chatterjee, Chief Secretary and related ministries in it. It will be a single window system and I am chairman of the board. We will conduct one meeting every month to review the industrial proposals and we will clear the road blocks promptly,” Mamata Banerjee said on Wednesday in Panagarh, adding that she has been focussing on social welfare schemes all this while but now she will put emphasis on industrial growth in Bengal.
With the target of becoming numero uno in industry, Mamata said Bengal will now prosper in industry and the state government will invite investments. She said that her government came up with “Ethanol Policy ” as it will be used as fuel mix. “Ethanol is environment friendly and considered a bio-fuel with its source in nature. With the new policy, we will draw more investment and the income of the farmers will also increase, giving a boost to the rural industry,” she said.
She spoke about one crore plus investment in the MSME sector. “In time of COVID, the state has witnessed 40% growth in employment. The state government has started working on Raghunapur industrial estate with an investment of Rs 72,000 crore. The work by WBIDC has already started for this industrial hub named as ‘Jungal Sundari’ and with the dedicated Freight corridor in Dankuni, Raghunathpur will be connected to other parts of the country,” Mamata Banerjee said.
She also spoke about Tajpur port in Bengal’s East Midnapore district which has faced a number of roadblocks.
More than 1500 plus IT companies are operating in Bengal. “The state is planning to set up a data handling and storage hub in Bengal which will cater to NE, Nepal and Bhutan. The state government will offer easy approval, quality power and support plan,” the Chief Minister said.
Kolkata-based Dhunseri Group, which is setting up a Rs 1,250 crore packaging poly film factory at Panagarh Industrial Park in Paschim Bardhaman district. The Chief Minister laid the foundation stone for the project and also proposed Dhunseri Group’s Table Tennis Academy.
The proposed project is being implemented by Dhunseri Ventures’ wholly owned subsidiary Dhunseri Polyfilms and will manufacture flexible packaging films used by FMCG companies for packaging consumable products like chips and tea. Plants and machinery for all the three units will be procured from German equipment manufacturer Brückner Maschinenbau. The project will be financed by a mix of debt and internal accruals.
Spread over 38 acres, the first phase of the plant will manufacture polyester films with a production capacity of 45,000 tonnes per annum (TPA). “The unit is expected to commence commercial operations by March 2023. The first unit will be a downstream unit of Dhunseri’s existing Haldia plant where it makes PET (polyethylene terephthalate),” group promoter Chandra Kumar Dhanuka said.
The second and third units will produce BOPP films with an installed capacity of 1,34,000 tpa and estimated production of 1,15,000 tpa. The second and the third unit is expected to begin commercial production by March 2024 and March 2026 respectively. Raw material for the second and third unit will be sourced from IOC’s Paradip plant (Odisha).
While total outlay for setting up the first unit will be roughly Rs 450 crore, that for the second and the third unit will require an investment of Rs 400 crore each. “We will infuse Rs 170 crore in the first unit. German bank Oldenburgische Landesbank (OLB) will finance 80 % of the balance Rs 280 crore project cost and HDFC Bank, the remaining 20 %,” Dhanuka added.