How can a handful of building material suppliers bring work to a halt in the state’s showpiece construction corridor? If the chief minister is, indeed, so bothered about business coming to Bengal, why doesn’t he rein in his party’s local leaders who patronise goons in Rajarhat? Why should we waste precious time and energy in Calcutta when we can so easily go to Chennai or Hyderabad?

These peeved posers came from the city head of an outstation realty giant, “disenchanted and disgusted” with the month-long stopwork hitting over 40 million sq ft of construction in New Town. Since the firm is trying to salvage its mega projects in Rajarhat, he chose not to be named.

Suppliers to Rajarhat, protesting the government diktat against overloading (for example, six-wheelers can no longer carry more than 300 to 365 cubic ft of sand), are demanding a 30 per cent rate rise to ferry stone chips, 40-45 per cent extra for sand and 12 per cent more for bricks. These are deemed “absolutely unreasonable” by the joint-sector companies and outstation developers operating in New Town.

There is no end to the stalemate in sight, with two meetings this week — involving local CPM leaders, suppliers and developers — proving abortive. “The ruling party representatives are taking the side of the suppliers and urging us to bow to their demands. This is preposterous,” said a realtor after Thursday’s meeting in the Hidco office.

“We know this stalemate needs to be resolved at the earliest,” conceded Hidco managing director and transport secretary Sumantra Chowdhury. But those who have booked space in Rajarhat are not convinced he can loosen the grip the local leaders and the supplier syndicate have over the area.

“Such things are unheard of in Chennai, where we have three projects under construction, or in Delhi, where we are developing three more residential products,” said Pradip Chopra of the city-based PS Group, set to start a residential-cum-commercial project in Rajarhat soon.

Work on almost all major projects in New Town has stopped, delivering yet another blow to the image of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s Bengal. “This could have a serious impact on the investor community. A month-long delay could force an IT firm to look at Chennai or Gurgaon instead,” warned Credai Bengal president Pradeep Sureka.