By IANS,
Kolkata : A fresh political confrontation is brewing in West Bengal with a union minister, owing allegiance to Trinamool Congress, Sunday declaring that an eco-tourism project will be implemented across Nayachar island where the state government has planned to set up a chemical hub.
“The present Left Front government in the state has lost the people’s confidence. People don’t care about what this government says. It is on oxygen. So what this government says about Nayachar is unimportant,” union Minister of State for Rural Devleopment Sisir Adhikari told IANS.
Nayachar island is a part of East Midnapore district and close to Haldia town, about 128 km from here.
The state government has announced Nayachar as the venue for the petroleum, chemicals and petrochemical investment region (PCPIR) that was originally scheduled to be set up in Nandigram of the same district.
Nandigram was aborted as the project site following much bloodletting over protests by Trinamool-led farmers against acquisition of their land for the chemical hub.
Only a couple of days back, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee held a high level meeting at the state secretariat to discuss matters pertaining to implementation of the project.
But Adhikari said the Trinamool-run East Midnapore ‘zilla parishad’ (district council) has already started parleys with experts on the eco-tourism project that will cover 78 km of the coastal belt and 37 km of the river belt in the district.
“Nayachar is a property of five million people of East Midnapore. The zilla parishad will get the project going. Half a million people will get employment,” said the union minister, who is a Lok Sabha MP from Contai in the district.
He said efforts were also on to connect the state’s sea resort of Digha with Orissa’s popular sea and temple town of Puri.
“This will result in international tourists coming to Digha,” he said.
A section of environmentalists and Trinamool have opposed the chemical hub project at Nayachar saying the environment in the islands would be damaged.
The central government has already given a preliminary clearance for the project based on the initial environment impact assessment. However, the state government was now waiting for the union government’s approval in regard to the detailed environment impact assessment.