Durgapur, March 21: The Asansol-Durgapur Development Authority (Adda) is looking at unused factory plots to build a land bank for investors willing to set up units here.

Adda has decided to take back land from entrepreneurs who have left vast tracts unutilised over the past two years or longer.

Officials said there are many firms eager to set up factories in Durgapur but Adda does not have land to give them. So it wants to take back plots occupied by closed private sector units, which fall within its jurisdiction.

According to Adda?s rules, it can seize land it has leased out if it is found lying unused for two years or more from the date of allocation. A special committee headed by chief executive officer of Adda and additional district magistrate (Asansol) .S. Nigam has begun a survey in the Durgapur industrial zone to identify such sites.

?We are drawing up a list of plots provided to a number of industries that are lying unutilised. This exercise will be carried out initially for the Durgapur industrial belt. Later, we will carry out the exercise in the Asansol and Ranigunj industrial belts,? said Nigam.

At present, about 30 investors are willing to set up steel, iron, ferroalloys, sponge iron, ceramic, incense and other small-scale industries. The need for land has increased, ?but we don?t have the land as most of it has been distributed?, he added.

The first lap of Adda?s survey, completed last week, identified nearly a dozen companies that have left about 80 acres unused, with Pibco Ltd alone occupying over 12 acres, an official said.

Adda is going to serve notice to the owners of these plots, informing them that the plots will be taken back.

Core Ceramic Ltd, occupying 5.5 acres, is another company Adda has zeroed in on. The company had taken the land in 1996 and started a ceramic factory. It was declared closed in 2003. Core Ceramic has also failed to return a major part of a loan it had taken from the Industrial Development Bank of India, officials said.

Along with the Durgapur Municipal Corporation and the state government, Adda has sought the Centre?s intervention to help it get back unused land occupied by closed central public sector units as well, like the Mining and Allied Machinery Corporation and the Hindustan Fertiliser Corporation of India.

?The chief minister has taken up the matter with Union heavy industries minister Santosh Mohan Dev. We need more land for industries here. There is no point leaving the land of the closed units unutilised,? said Bansagopal Chowdhury, the state cottage and small-scale industries minister and chairman of Adda.

The state government is also planning to scrap the West Bengal Urban Land Ceiling Act that governs the use of prime plots in Calcutta, Barrackpore, Barasat, Durgapur, Asansol and Kalyani.

Adda officials said a number of entrepreneurs are heading for Durgapur and Asansol to set up steel, sponge iron and ferroalloys units, which are highly polluting. Adda and the Durgapur and Asansol civic bodies have decided not to allow them to set up their units in areas with thick human habitat.

?For this, we are looking forward to acquire non-agricultural private land along National Highway 2. We are discussing the matter with landowners through local panchayats. The landowners will be compensated according to market prices,? said Chowdhury.

At a recent meeting, Adda had planned to set up twin industrial complexes at Kanksa near Durgapur and in Jamuria near Asansol on 1,200 acres of private land. The Jamuria complex, on 700 acres, will be exclusively for sponge iron mills.