Bengal has a history of bad politics ruining good economics. The recent debates on new industries show how that tradition continues to shackle the state’s economic growth. The political controversy over the Bengal government’s proposal to set up a chemical hub is another example. The choice of Nayachar, an island off the industrial complex at Haldia, for the hub may make better political sense, but it is bad economics. The cost of developing an industrial infrastructure on the island will be enormously higher than what it would have been on another site. Connecting it to Haldia would require a three-kilometre long bridge to be built on the Hooghly river. And the environmental costs of setting up a chemical complex on a low-lying island could be even higher. All these are prices to be paid for irrational politics. It would have made much better economic sense to have the complex built on the mainland adjacent to Haldia. Obviously, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s choice of Nayachar was influenced by the violent political opposition he had faced at Singur and Nandigram. But he has obviously learnt some lessons from those protests. The political consensus that he has sought to achieve over the chemical hub should be the government’s strategy for all industrial projects in future. This strategy has worked for the proposals for new steel projects in Purulia and West Midnapore.

Unfortunately, the political arguments over Bengal’s industrialization often miss the bigger picture. It is not enough for the government to try and revive old or sick industries such as jute or tea. Economic modernity is today associated with chemicals, pharmaceuticals, automobiles and other new-age industries, and with the services linked to information technology. It is suicidal to oppose, as Mamata Banerjee has done, the proposals for modern industries in the name of protecting farmland. It is also crucial for the politicians to accept that the new industrialization schemes will be driven primarily by the private sector. Environmental concerns over chemical projects have their validity, but they can be no reason for not having such modern industries. The most important issue is the one of Bengal’s transition from an agrarian to an industrialized economy. Bengal cannot hope to make that transition if 62 per cent of its land continues to be locked in agriculture.