Bengal yet to see industrial peace, says Tata honcho

KOLKATA: Industrial peace is yet to come naturally to Bengal, said Tata Hitachi HR head Indu Singh in Kolkata on Saturday, pointing out that it often needs intervention from the chief minister to restore order. She said this while sharing the dais with commerce and industries minister Amit Mitra at the CII Eastern Region Council meeting in Kolkata on Saturday.
The Tata Hitachi manufacturing plant in Kharagpur happens to be one of the showpiece projects of the Mamata Banerjee government although the agreement was signed during the Left Front regime along with the Tata Nano project in Singur, which eventually shifted to Sanand in Gujarat.
“Industrial peace is still a big trouble in this state. We faced big trouble with contract workers a few months back. We appealed to the CM and she intervened,” Singh said. Apart from Bengal, Tata Hitachi has plants in Karnataka and Jharkhand. Its Kharagpur plant has an annual production capacity of 345,000 tonnes of pig iron and turnover of Rs 1230 crore (2014-15). Singh urged Mitra to develop social infrastructure in Kharagpur. “There is hardly any social infrastructure there,” she said.
The minister assured her that the state government is doing its best to ensure smooth running of industry, “keeping in mind the public interest as well”. “In case of Tata Hitachi, the CM has intervened, which shows how serious she is in such matters,” Mitra said. He mentioned that the Tata Group is one of the largest private employers in Bengal with 35,000 employees in IT and manufacturing.
Tata Metaliks MD Sanjiv Paul praised the CM for building a road promptly at the request of Tata Metaliks. “We are really happy to see this,” he said. Besides, Paul and Singh, Tata Steel MD T V Narendran, who is also vice-chairman of CII Eastern Regional Council, attended the meeting.
Earlier, addressing the council, Mitra said that investments of Rs 87,000 crore are either on the verge of implementation or already underway in Bengal in a little over three years. “Out of this figure, (projects worth) Rs 7,000 crore are already up and running,” he said, adding that 453 new large and medium units have been set up under the new regime, generating 2.3 lakh jobs. As many as 56,872 new small-scale units have been set up, creating 5.18 lakh jobs. “Over 7 lakh employment has been generated in manufacturing itself since we came (to power),” he said.