Kolkata, Jan 8 (IANS): West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will be chairing a meeting on Wednesday to review the preparation for the Bengal Global Business Summit (BGBS) 2025, the annual business meet organised by the state government to attract industrial investments.
This year the two-day BGBS is scheduled on February 5 and February 6.
State government sources said that besides the state Chief Secretary, Manoj Pant, those bureaucrats who were, especially, given the task of making the preparations full-proof, will also be present at Wednesday’s meeting.
Sources further said that time the Chief Minister gave the assignment to the bureaucrats well in advance to ensure that there were no last-minute hitches in the said event.
Political observers feel that BGBS-2025 is extremely crucial for the chief minister both in the political perspectives considering that the state Assembly elections will be there in 2026.
“First this will be a golden opportunity for the Chief Minister to send a message both to the industry fraternity as well as the common voters that her government is really interested in offering an industry-friendly environment in the state," said a city-based political observer.
However, he also said that the business meeting this time will be a usual exercise like the previous years unless the Chief Minister gives specific messages of revision in land and special economic zone (SEZ) policies in the state.
Economists and industry observers have long been arguing against the current land policy of West Bengal that totally rules out state government intervention in land procurement for industry. In such a situation considering the highly fragmented nature of land-holding in West Bengal, no investor will be ready to bear the trouble of interacting with individual landowners and setting up big industries which require huge plots of land at one go. Secondly, the state government's total denial of granting new SEZ status is discouraging players in the services sector, especially the ITeS (Information Technology Enabled Services) sector from investing in the state.