Business

According to leading industrialists, the sectors like steel and mining, chemicals and petro-chemicals, power, agro industries and food processing, Information Technology (IT), real estate and retail have been generating a lot of interest in West Bengal.

The State is a gateway not only to north-east India besides other States like Orissa, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, but also to countries like Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, and Myanmar.

The growth and development is obvious in and around the capital city of Kolkata. Major real estate players like DLF, Unitech, Singapore-based Keppeland, Purvankara, Emaar Group, are all competing for a pie of the new satellite township coming up at Rajarhat, near the airport.

Besides housing estates, several budget and star hotels
and conference centres, cultural centres, shopping malls, multiplexes are being built across the city.

Smaller towns like Durgapur, Haldia, Asansol, and Siliguri across the State are developing. The steel sector, recently received a boost with the foundation stone laying of the proposed Rs. 35,000 crore-Jindal Steel Plant in Salboni, in West Midnapore District, approximately 240 kilometres from Kolkata.

The other sectors that have witnessed a lot of activity are metals, mining and plastic.

With a sustained agricultural growth of over 8 per cent, the State is also finding investors in the agro-industries and in food processing.

"There is great focus in potato, other vegetables and fruit cultivation and processing. The entry of wholesale giants like Metro-Cash-And-Carry signals well for this segment," says Dr. Rajeev Singh, Secretary General, Indian Chamber of Commerce.

Foreign companies no longer need to get their documents certified at the Indian embassy or high commission of their respective countries and new rules would shortly come into place.

"New arrangement for certification and apostillisation under the Hague Convention is in place and will be announced soon", corporate affairs ministry joint secretary Mr Jitesh Khosla said today.

Apostillisation is the legalisation of a document for international use under the terms of the 1961 Hague Convention. Firms based in countries other than India till now have to get their documents and articles certified and apostillised by the Indian embassy of their country.

"Now they (foreign firms) don't have to go to the Indian embassy for the purpose of certification of their articles", he said.

"We welcome Chinese investments, as well as the industrial sector, to look at the state as a potential-automobile manufacturing hub. The growing expertise in the automobile sector is an advantage for the Chinese companies," said Sabyasachi Sen, principal secretary, department of commerce & industries, government of West Bengal. He was speaking at a seminar on Chinese investment opportunities in Bengal, in Kolkata on Monday.

"From the `90s, the state is on the path of industrial revival," Sen said, adding that there are huge investment possibilities in leather, engineering, IT, biotechnology and infrastructure sectors in the state. "There are very good investment opportunities for manufacturing capacities of electrical goods in the state," he said.

Speaking at a inaugural ceremony of the 36th World Congress on Housing Science, in Kolkata on Monday, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, chief minister of West Bengal, said big companies, including the world's largest steel producer ArcelorMittal, want to to set up offices in Rajarhat.

"ICICI, Mittal, Jindal and Mittal's want to set up offices in Rajarhat," the chief minister said.

However, with land prices rising, providing land to the industries was a major challenge, he added. "We have a problem of land in urban areas. Prices of land are increasing everyday. It is a complicated issue. Gautam Deb is asking for Rs 7 crore per acre for land," the chief minister said referring to his state housing minster.

Another problem faced by the real estate sector in recent days was scarce bank finance, he added.

Traversing 150 km by road from Kolkata to arrive at this near-barren location in Paschim Medinipur district, Mr. Bhattacharjee walked in to a rousing welcome from a 5000-strong gathering who cheered as he unveiled a symbolic structure of the project by remote control. He said 10,000 people would be employed by the project which would have steel, cement and power plants.

The government signed the project agreement with JSW Steel in January 2007. The function was attended by leaders of all main political parties, barring the Trinamool Congress.

The Sajjan Jindal group, which is setting up this project, has got possession of 4,500 acres of land. "Some have voluntarily given their land which was acquired directly by the government and some land has been given by the State government which had vested land here," the Chief Minister said.

The parks will be in Shantiniketan, Salt Lake and Durgapur and the export mart will be in Rajarhat.

"We are coming up with an export mart and three urban haats, much like the dilli haat, where the craftsmen will be able to sell their products almost throughout the year. There will also be a food park and craftsmen will be provided with living places, where they can stay temporarily. The craftsmen will have to pay a minimal monthly charge. The projects will be completed within the next one-and-a-half years," said S C Panja, joint director, MSMSETD.

For the park at Shantiniketan, 4 acres now owned by Shantiniketan Development Authority (SDA) would be acquired for the Rs 4-crore project due for completion by 2010-11.

The project in Durgapur and Salt Lake would need 5 acres and 3 acres, respectively, with investment of Rs 4 crore each.

All three would be partially funded by the central government with maximum assistance of Rs 2 crore each, added Panja.

When Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee recently said that though he had lost a battle in Singur, but his war for industrialisation was still on, he was not making a statement that was political alone.

For, Bhattacharjee's confidence stems from dozens of projects worth thousands of crores of rupees, which are either in the pipeline or have already been implemented over the last decade.

From 1991 to 2007, the state has seen the implementation of 1,729 large and medium projects with a total investment of Rs 37,805 crore. In 2007 alone, 291 industrial projects worth Rs 5,073 crore were implemented.

Greater Kolkata (Kolkata, Howrah, Hooghly, North & South 24 Parganas)
Already implemented: 151 projects, Rs 1305.53 crore invested

Proposed:

• Mahabarat Motors Manufacturing Company Pvt Ltd (motorcycle)
  
• Texmaco Ltd & Titagarh Wagons Ltd (wagon making)

Proposed

• Bhushan Steel Ltd, Kitchen Appliances India Ltd (integrated steel)
  
• Vedanta Aluminium Ltd (aluminium, power)
  
• Bengal Aerotropolis Project Ltd (Airport, Ind Park, social infrastructure)
  
• Kalyani Steel, Adhunik Corp Ltd, Jai Balaji Ind Ltd, Shyam Steel (integrated steel)
  
• Expansion of Durgapur Steel Plant, Alloy Steel Plant and IISCO Steel Plant

Proposed

• JSW Bengal Steel Ltd (int steel)
  
• TELCON (heavy earth moving eqp)
  
• Tata Metaliks (expansion)
  
• Ramsarup Lohh Udyog Ltd (int steel)
  
• Emami Paper Mills
  
• Radial Tyres
  
• Auto Component Park

Proposed

• Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd (refinery expansion
  
• Mitsubishi Chemical Corp
  
• Bengal Shipyard Ltd (ship building)
  
• PCR Chemicals Pvt Ltd
  
• CALS Refineries Ltd (oil refinery)

Proposed

• IT
  
• Biotech/Food Processing
  
• Cement plants
  
• Ind Parks
  
• Kalyani Knowledge Industry Zone: Educational proj, IT/ITES

Besides, there are proposed plants for chemicals, petrochemicals, paper, tyres, wagon-making, ship building and oil refineries. Add to this, are a slew of industrial parks catering to specific sectors like leather, jewellery, garments, plastic, bio-tech and IT/ITES.

"We are committed to Bengal," said Benny Santoso, chief executive, Salim group, responding to queries on whether Tata Motors' possible pullout from Singur would affect the group's investments.

NRI businessman, Prasoon Mukherjee, chairman, Universal Success Enterprises, said that the West Bengal chief minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was briefed about the status of the projects in the state. Universal Success is also investing in the projects.

Mukherjee said, the discussions were very fruitful and productive meeting.

The main projects were the housing project under Kolkata West International City, the chemical hub of NKID, the power project of Universal Success and the motorcycle project to be undertaken by Mahabharat Motors.

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At the same time, they called for the government to make it easier for Indian companies to borrow overseas by easing the restrictions that have been imposed in the past to reduce excessive liquidity in the system and control inflation.

This will, in turn, lead to a slowing in investment growth in the months ahead. As lending gets tighter and investment flows dry, corporate India will find it more difficult to raise both equity and debt. The Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (EAC) has already hinted at this when it said that while it doesn’t expect too much of a slowing in investment rates, it does see a slackening in the growth of savings. The EAC sees the gap in savings and investments being made up by foreign savings.

Shubhada Rao, chief economist, Yes Bank, said the developments come as a huge concern. “The risk of a financial contagion would exist. If they (Merrill Lynch or Lehman Brothers) were commercial banks, the risk would have heightened,” she said, adding that Indian companies would find the going harder to raise funds. “The pain is going to linger on. We could see a reversal of portfolio inflows. The time has come for policy action to ease restrictions. Contagion like symptoms are evolving in the US and the problems will persist for some time. We cannot allow capital flows to suffer,” Rao added.

Speaking to the media on the sidelines of a seminar "Doing Business with China", organised by Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC), Siwei said: "Hopefully there will be a good business environment after the resolution of the deadlock."

Chinese companies are in the process of entering into joint ventures with West Bengal and will be interested in setting up manufacturing units in steel, power and tyres, he said.

These investments are, however, in the initial stages and the exact figures are not available, the counsul-general added.

The state planned to set up three jute parks under the jute technology mini mission-IV.

If the Centre approved the proposal, the parks would come up in Cooch Behar, North Dinajpur and Murshidabad, said Manoj Pant, state textiles commissioner.

In each of the districts, about 35 acres had been identified, he claimed.

"The parks will have one or two anchor investors, and will be mainly meant for diversified jute products. The detailed project report will be submitted to Jute Manufacturers Development Council (JMDC) this month," Pant said.

According to JMDC sources, "West Bengal is taking active interest in setting up jute parks in the state."

Meanwhile, Assam, first to apply for a jute park under the SITP scheme, was yet to submit its proposal.

The work at the factory site was severely hit after the state's principal opposition party, Trinamool Congress, started an agitation around the project site demanding that 400 out of a total of 997.1 acres of land allotted for the project be returned to their original owners.The party had claimed that this land belonged to those farmers who were 'unwilling' to part with their land but were forced to do so by the ruling Left coalition government in the state.The agitation, which virtually became a siege of the project site for as long as 15 days, disrupted the factory construction work and forced the auto major to withdraw its employees and stop all work at the site for an indefinite period.

On Sunday night, an accord was reached between West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee, when they met in person in the study of the Raj Bhavan, the state governor's official residence, to thrash out all remaining issues.According to the agreement, the state government will form a committee to look into the affected farmers' demands.

"We have already acquired 400 acres of land for our project," V.N. Dhoot told reporters after meeting state chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.

Tata Motors has faced violent protests and political opposition in West Bengal over acquisition of farmland for the plant that is billed to produce the world's cheapest car.

The carmaker has also threatened to end the project in Singur, an hour's drive from Kolkata, if the protests, that have stopped work in the plant, continue.

With the help of this version of the XBRL, data entry officials of Indian companies need to enter data only once and later they can automatically convert it to any formats like spreadsheet, PDF. and the like. ICAI's central council member Mr Atul C Bheda said the procedure to prepare and publish financial documents would become easier with introduction of the new version of the language. At present, data entry officials of Indian companies need to feed data manually, which is time consuming and error-prone.

Moreover, sharing of data is difficult because there are no automated methods to retrieve data. But, XBRL would alleviate most of these problems by attaching "bar codes" to every data as soon as it is uploaded.

He further added that the way of describing data by using "bar codes" would enable a user to collect data of numerous companies within a short span of time. This in turn would help the user to conduct an analysis of the collected information faster. Apart from business houses, chartered accountants can also avail of the facility.

"Organisations like Microsoft, ACCPAC, Oracle, Deloitte & Touche, IBM, Hyperion and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) had formed XBRL International Standards Board to develop the language and have already implemented it in various countries" said Mr Ashim Chandar, technical head of ICAC.