By IANS,
Kolkata : West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee Wednesday said the state had to take cautious steps towards land acquisition.
Bhattacharjee also advocated a nationwide land acquisition policy.
“We have to move cautiously and have to formulate proper land acquisition and rehabilitation policy. We have to formulate it in our own way,” the chief minister said at a National Executive Committee meeting organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) here.
“(The) government of India has placed a draft policy of land acquisition and a parliamentary standing committee has discussed it and they have finalised it,” Bhattacharjee said.
“There are two members in that committee from our party. The committee will place it (the draft policy) in the parliament.”
West Bengal recently faced strong resentment from the opposition party Trinamool Congress-led farmers compelling global auto major Tata Motors to pull out their cheapest car, Nano, project from the state.
The chief minister again invited investments for the state.
He said 60 percent of the people in the state were dependent on agriculture, which is not a good sign for the economy.
“There are some problems in the state at the administrative level and some at the ground level. We are trying to identify and solve those problems,” he said.
He said it was very important to have a deep sea port in the state’s South 24 Parganas on Bay of Bengal.
“But,” he said “I read in newspaper that in the BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for MultiSectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) summit it was decide that the deep sea port will come up at Chittagong in Bangladesh.
“I am going to Delhi next Saturday and will discuss this with (External Affairs Minister) Pranab Mukherjee and if necessary I will talk to Prime Minister (Manmohan) Singh.”