New Delhi, June 27: Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today sought the Prime Minister’s intervention to ensure Bengal can draw on iron ore reserves in neighbouring states to put up steel plants.

At least one large investment ? proposed by the Jindals ? is unable to progress because of the refusal of Jharkhand and Orissa to allow companies to mine iron ore in their territory unless they set up plants there, too.

At a recent meeting of eastern states, the chief minister had made a strong pitch for a mechanism for sharing mineral resources but found no takers.

He made the same appeal today at a meeting of the National Development Council. Bhattacharjee drew Manmohan Singh’s attention to the anomaly where there is a national policy for mining and using coal, which Bengal has, but no such mechanism exists for iron ore and bauxite. As a result, while Bengal shares coal with other states, it does not get access to iron ore.

He sought the formation of a minerals and metals council of the eastern states that would create the framework for collaboration.

Bhattacharjee argued strongly for turning the Calcutta airport into a hub for east-bound international passengers and cargo, especially to China, Japan, and Southeast Asia.

He said the international terminal building required an immediate upgrade, particularly for cargo-handling, which would not be possible without central assistance.

Bhattacharjee sought help to develop a deep draft seaport at the Sandheads, a fishing harbour at Khajouri and imp-rove the road network as part of the Prime Minister’s “look east strategy”.

He iterated the demand for upgrading Bagdogra to an international airport, linking it to Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh.

In the long run, he said, it would be necessary to develop a deep draft seaport somewhere near the mouth of the Hooghly or at the Sandheads at Sagar to deal with the international trend of larger ships requiring to be berthed.

Bhattacharjee wanted the Centre to treat the proposed fishing harbour at Khajouri as a national project as it had the potential of achieving exports worth Rs 600 crore from the Haldia port located 25 km away. The proposed harbour is expected to be the country’s largest.

He took to the national platform Bengal’s long-standing complaint about inadequate devolution of funds from the Centre.

In language that was reminiscent of the anti-Centre tirade indulged in by Jyoti Basu in the times of Indira and Rajiv Gandhi, Bhattacharjee said Bengal was getting a raw deal by way of transfer of funds.

The chief minister dismissed the Centre’s new debt-relief scheme, saying it “is much too inadequate to be of any significant assistance”.

Under the scheme, high-cost loans can be swapped with low-cost borrowings, reducing the repayment burden.

“What is more disturbing is that the (high-interest) loans given to the state from the national small savings fund from 1999-2000 onwards have been excluded from the scope of debt relief,” he said.