• Jobs for nearly 50,000, directly and indirectly • Residential and working facilities for nearly 10,000 • Value-added exports will record a new estimated high of $280 million • Government can generate its own revenues and help cut down costs, now incurred through imports of finished goods from neighbouring countries, like Nepal and Bhutan. • Bengal can earn at least 30 per cent of the total $210-billion market in the country Source: Indian Plastics Federation

After information technology, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s government plans to boost Bengal’s plastic industry.

The country’s first polypark is coming up, at either Bantala or Uluberia, at an estimated cost of Rs 100 crore. Nearly 100 processing units will be set up under one roof. Fully equipped with modern facilities for its 10,000-odd employees, the park will house residential quarters, malls and restaurants.

The Indian Plastics Federation, with members like Reliance Industries and Haldia Petrochemicals, has been lobbying for quite some time to turn Calcutta into a plastic-manufacturing hub. Last week, the federation received the government’s nod for its polypark plans.

“Our chief minister has been kind enough to offer us viable land near Calcutta, where the polypark will be set up, enabling plastic-manufacturing units to set up base. We are at the moment working out the modalities for executing the project,” elaborated federation secretary K.K. Seksaria.

The government has given the federation — in talks with the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation to form a joint-venture company to execute the project — a 50-acre option to set up the polypark.

“Once the location of the land is finalised, the rest of the project will fall into place automatically,” asserted special secretary to the chief minister S.A. Ahmed.

Federation members feel that once the polypark is in place, manufacturing under one roof could cut down costs and ensure more profits.

Several of the 1,500-odd units in the plastic industry get raw materials from Haldia Petrochemicals, Reliance Industries and the Gas Authority of India, while a lot of finished products come from western India, Delhi and neighbouring Nepal, and even Bhutan. The 600 federation members feel that the polypark will take Bengal on top of the country’s plastic industry map.

According to secretary Seksaria, all the plastic processors/manufacturers planning to set up units at the park will have to purchase land at viable rates. “Everybody has shown a keen interest in the new polytown and it’s a pity that in the first phase, we cannot accommodate more than 100,” Seksaria added.

The hub will provide manufacturing facilities for all kinds of plastic products, ranging from household items to electrical cables and medical items (saline bottles, disposable syringes, blood packs) to consumer durables, electronic and IT-back up items, and even solar panels.