Durgapur, April 16: Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee?s investor-friendly talk does not seem to have had its desired effect on trade unions in his state.

Unions of three parties ?the CPM, the Congress and the Trinamul Congress ? have brought construction of factories in the newly-set up industrial zone in the Durgapur-Faridpur block to a halt over the past month. The three unions are at loggerheads over recruitment of contract labourers.

The administration had identified 100 acres of private land in Hetedoba and Parulia, about 230 km from Calcutta, for setting up 20 medium-scale industries. Ten entrepreneurs had responded. But now, work has come to a standstill.

Subdivisional officer of Durgapur Osman Ghani held a series of meetings with the union leaders and the entrepreneurs but a solution is yet to be reached. Initially, the SDO had proposed that the labourers be recruited through the employment exchange.

But Citu, the CPM?s labour arm, opposed it. ?This will be in violation of norms as a minimum of 90 days? labour would then have to be assured to them,? said Sukhen Sarkar, Citu vice-president of the Burdwan district committee.

The chief executive officer of the Asansol-Durgapur Development Authority, Narayan Swarup Nigam, then joined the discussions. At the meeting held yesterday, he proposed that below poverty line (BPL) people be recruited for the jobs. But his idea was shot down by the Intuc (the Congress?s labour arm) and the Trinamul?s Inttuc. The Citu accepted it.

?We will wait for two or three days more before taking any drastic step. We are under no compulsion to recruit contract labourers through the trade unions,? an annoyed Nigam said.

?We don?t want any involvement of trade unions in the recruitment process. We think recruitment from the BPL strata will help provide employment to some poor people. We will ask the entrepreneurs to collect a BPL list from the local BDO?s office,? he added.

The Intuc and Inttuc think that most people on the BPL list will be CPM supporters as the list has been prepared by the ruling party. ?The entire list is faulty. We will not accept it,? said Intuc and Inttuc representatives.

The Intuc today demonstrated at the construction sites. ?We will continue our agitation until our supporters, too, are taken as labourers on a 60:40 ratio or through the employment exchange,? said Prabhat Chatterjee, a Durgapur Intuc leader.

But it is the entrepreneurs, who have invested about Rs 15 to 20 crore, who are at the receiving end. ?If we knew such a problem would crop up, we would not have come here to set up units,? one of them, requesting anonymity, said. The entrepreneurs had purchased the land directly from the owners for setting up their units.

?There is an unwritten law that as the Citu has a stronger base in Durgapur, 60 per cent of the labourers are taken from its camp. The rest are shared by the Intuc and the Inttuc. This time, the Intuc and the Inttuc felt that the Citu is trying to push more of its supporters to the construction sites than it should. So, they protested, resulting in the deadlock,? an official said.