Bhattacharjee

Coimbatore, April 1: Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today met local industrialists, mainly from the city’s booming textile sector, and invited them to invest in Bengal.

With him was industries minister Nirupam Sen, both leaders taking a break from the CPM party congress which has endorsed Bhattacharjee’s industrialisation drive.

“Although investment is coming to Bengal, it has not created the same volume of jobs as in Tamil Nadu,” Bhattacharjee told representatives of the South Indian Mills Association (Sima) and a Coimbatore chamber of commerce.

“We have to provide jobs, particularly to women and those below the poverty line. That’s why I am inviting you,” he was quoted as saying by Sima general secretary K. Selvaraju.

At a time Bengal’s focus on technology-intensive industry has done little to pacify critics of the industrialisation drive, the party congress has stressed on “employment-generating industry” in Left-ruled states as opposed to Manmohan Singh’s “jobless growth”.

“The labour-intensive textile industry can create a huge volume of jobs, especially for women. That’s why we are keen to invite you,” Sen said.

Selvaraju said he was impressed by Bhattacharjee’s keenness. “We had initially planned to meet the Bengal officials, but the chief minister wanted to join the discussion. It’s rare to see a chief minister come over instead of asking us to go to his place.”

Sources said local business teams would visit Calcutta soon. A Sima official said Bengal faced competition from Andhra Pradesh in wooing Tamil Nadu investors, who are hampered by water, power and labour shortage. But Bengal has an advantage: the phenomenal growth in the garment sector in Bangladesh next door.

Small and cottage industries minister Manab Mukherjee, who too was at the meeting, promised incentives to all textile units. “We also invited public-private participation in loss-making state-run spinning mills,” Mukherjee said.