Calcutta, Feb. 27: The Bengal government and the Emami Group today inked an agreement to build the state’s largest wood-based paper mill at Kultikri, West Midnapore.

The Rs 2,200-crore project will cover 1,400 acres, half of which is already with the government. Emami will buy the remaining 700 acres directly from farmers.

“Officials of the group have developed a good rapport with the people (of Kultikri) as they have been regularly visiting the place for a long time. They will hopefully have no problem in getting the land,” industries secretary Sabyasachi Sen said after the deal was signed. Recycled water from the mill be used for agriculture, he added.

The project is expected to create direct employment for 1,000 people and 4,000 more indirectly. “We shall start construction within a year so that production can begin in three years after that,” said R.S. Agarwal, joint Emami chairman.

The plant will be part of a paper and allied products park being developed by the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) about 185km from Calcutta.

With a capacity of 600 tonnes a day, it will require around 6 lakh tonnes of pulpable wood. Emami director Manish Goenka said the state had promised 1.8 lakh tonnes of wood.

Bengal sells all its wood to outsiders in the absence of a wood-based paper producer.

The company also plans to undertake social forestry in Orissa and Bengal for raw material. “The chief minister has told us to explore the possibility of using jute stems as raw material,” Goenka said.

Sen and WBIDC managing director Subrata Gupta represented the state in today’s deal. Agarwal and the other Emami chairman, R.S. Goenka, were on the other side.

“Such a huge (paper) pro-ject is coming up for the first time in Bengal,” chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said.