West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee with businessman Mukesh Ambani during the Bengal Global Business Summit, in Kolkata, on Wednesday.
Credit: PTI Photo
Kolkata: With just a little more than a year to go before the assembly polls in West Bengal, the state’s Trinamool Congress government led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday elicited investment commitments of Rs 91000 crore from the industry leaders who assembled for a business summit in Kolkata.
The first day of the Bengal Global Business Summit in Kolkata saw Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani declaring his group’s intent to invest Rs 50000 crore in West Bengal by the end of the decade. “Bengal is the land of renaissance, now experiencing a renaissance in business and economy. Under Mamata Didi, Bengal means business,” said Ambani.
“Today, in less than a decade, our investments in Bengal have increased 20 times, and we have invested over Rs 50,000 crore. Mamata Didi, we shall double this investment by the end of this decade. Our investments have created over one lakh direct jobs.”
RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group Chairman Sanjiv Goenka said that his group, which already invested Rs 40000 crore, would go for an additional investment of Rs 10,000 crore in the state.
The JSW Group will invest Rs 16,000 crore in two 800 MW power plants at Salboni in Paschim Medinipur district of West Bengal, said the group’s chairman Sajjan Jindal. Besides, he added, the group will support an industrial park and infrastructure upgrades at the airport in Durgapur. Ambuja Neotia Group Chairman Harsh Neotia also announced that the group plans to invest around ₹15,000 crore in the next five years.
Banerjee’s government has been drawing flak from the Bharatiya Janata Party, which emerged as the principal challenger to the ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, for growing unemployment and lack of industries in the state.
The business summit in Kolkata on Wednesday and Thursday was a move by the TMC government to get rid of West Bengal’s anti-industry image as well as to silence the opposition parties ahead of the assembly elections, which would be held in April-May 2026.
Banerjee announced the formation of a new state-level synergy committee to ensure ease of doing business in West Bengal. She said the first day’s session of the Bengal Global Business Summit was a “majestic and stupendous success”.
The chief minister said that the Deocha-Pachami coal mine project in Birbhum would act as a catalyst for the state's industrial sector.
“Infrastructure is ready; coal extraction (in Deocha-Pachami) could begin as early as tomorrow. Job opportunities will also be provided to land donors. Family members of the landowners will be provided jobs. The arrangement for compensation is fully in place,” she said.
Banerjee also said that projects worth nearly Rs 13 lakh crore obtained from the previous seven editions of the summit had already started in the state.
She added that the state’s projected GSDP in the current fiscal stood at Rs 19 lakh crore and emphasised that West Bengal grew at a faster pace than the national GDP in the last financial year.