Union home minister P Chidambaram at the Indo-Tibetan Border Police’s raising day parade in New Delhi on Friday. (PTI)

New Delhi, Oct. 23: Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee requested the Centre to allot Bengal coal mines for planned factories in Naxalite zones a day after his government struck a deal with the rebels for a cop’s release.

Top coal ministry officials said the chief minister wanted blocks for projects in West Midnapore — where officer Atindranath Dutta was taken hostage — and Purulia.

Officials said the industrial drive was part of a larger policy of creating jobs and fostering development in tribal areas to wean the tribals away from the rebels.

“We understand there is a procedure and it can take time (to allocate coal mines). The discussions with coal minister Sriprakash Jaiswal were positive,” Bhattacharjee said after his meeting with the minister.

Officials said the chief minister also wanted Coal India to tie mining to industrial development.

The demand, the officials said, seems similar to those made by iron ore-rich Orissa and Jharkhand. The two states have also sought to link the allocation of iron mines to sett- ing up of new factories.

The Centre has been trying to resist such pressure, preferring an open auction of mines that doesn’t put any obligation on firms getting them to set up factories there. “Tying mining rights in this manner could create problems. Steel needs iron ore, coal and manganese. The same steel companies then will have to promise facilities in three states which supply each of these raw materials,” an official said.

Bhattacharjee told minister Jaiswal that the blocks already allocated in Bengal were being used to support steel projects in the tribal districts.

The demand for coal comes at a time several steel projects in Bengal’s tribal areas are held up for want of coal blocks. Videocon and Kalyani Steel want to set up plants in Jamuria, Burdwan, and Shyam Steel has lined up a project in Purulia.

Steel companies need cap-tive coal mines so they can produce cheap electricity to fire their plants and sell any possible surplus to power utilities. Bengal’s request for fresh blocks has been pending with the Centre for some time.

Without coal allocations, there is little hope of any of the projects coming up. However, some steel projects — like Jindal’s in Salboni, West Midnapore, and Jai Balaji’s in Raghunathpur, Purulia, have already got coal blocks.

Investors said both the Centre and the state were to blame for the delay. While the Congress government has allegedly not been enthusiastic in allocating coal mines after the Left severed ties with the UPA last year, the state, too, has been accused of not pushing its case strongly enough.

Today, Bhattacharjee said the state wanted nine coal blocks also for the government’s mineral development firm.

Central forces

The Centre today assured Bengal there would be no reduction in paramilitary forces because of the polls in neighbouring Jharkhand.

Bhattacharjee met home minister P. Chidambaram to discuss the situation in the aftermath of the hostage crisis.

Sources said he had feared that some of the 18 companies posted in the Lalgarh region would be pulled out for deployment during the elections in Jharkhand. The polls announced today would be held in five phases between November 27 and December 18.