Bengal industrial growth corridor may see Rs 43,000cr investment: WBIDC

KOLKATA : West Bengal’s proposed industrial growth corridor between Haldia and Durgapur may see an investment of Rs 43,000 crore over the next three to five years spread, a senior WBIDC official said.

An electrified, high-speed, freight-only corridor from Ludhiana in Punjab to Dankuni in West Bengal will boost the proposed industrial growth corridor of the state.

Warehousing, ​among others, ​also ​holds immense potential with​ the availability of 12-13 million square feet in the Dankuni–Haldia-Kharagpur–Kalyani–Durgapur sector and huge investment can be witnessed, West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation Limited (WBIDC) Executive Director Rajesh Rathod said.

“I can expect the investment has potential to fructify over next three to five years,” Rathod said, replying to a question at CII organized East India Summit on West Bengal.

He also highlighted that the state had a positive growth of 1.2 per cent when the country’s economy contracted by more than seven per cent during the Covid-19 pandemic.

State Industry Minister Partha Chatterjee said there had been a recent upsurge of interest in installing data centres and ethanol projects in the state.

He also underscored the projects the state has undertaken to ramp up infrastructure.

Chatterjee mentioned the projects such as the ‘Jangal Sundari Karmanagari’ being developed as an integrated manufacturing cluster on an industrial township model on 2,483 acres in Purulia district.

Asian Highway projects connecting neighbouring countries such as Nepal, Bangladesh and Myanmar through the districts of north Bengal are also underway, the official said.

The minister released a report on Future Mobility that envisions West Bengal as a manufacturing hub for electric vehicles (EV) and battery storage by 2024.

The state government has come up with an EV Policy in June.