Kolkata: Civil unrest in Nandigram and Singur has put the West Bengal government on the back foot on promising land to companies that want to invest in land there.
The stalling has hit corporate sector which can not wait indefinitely to roll out its plans.
Two years ago, the West Bengal government had invited Infosys to start a development centre in Kolkata. Since then no development in the deal has taken place.
“We are still waiting for the government to come back,” says HR Director of Infosys TV Mohandas Pai.
Even Kolkata-based ITC finds it tough to get land in its home state to set up a food processing unit.
Given the current state of activities, ITC has started to drop hints about acquiring alternative sites.
“The problem is that we could do it here [West Bengal]. We could do it next door in Orissa. Orissa is already giving us various options. But I have made a commitment to West Bengal's Chief Minister that we would do it here. Now, we are waiting for land so that we can do it,” says Chairman ITC Y C Deveshwar.
Tata Motors has already made headlines on land acquisition problems and others are not finding it easy either. Violence and unrest seem to have halted Bengal's corporate development plans at least for the time being.
(With Sulakshna Mukherjee in Kolkata and Ramya Rammamurthy in Mumbai)
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