By IANS,
Kolkata: The governments of West Bengal, Goa and Chhattisgarh Saturday competed with each other to woo investment by highlighting their success stories at the PanIIT Alumni Global Conference here.
West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra, while speaking at the conference’s second day, portrayed the growth figure of the state in various sectors.
“We have jumped on the overall from 17th position last year to 6th position,” Mitra said besides once again pointing out the huge debt burden the Mamata Banerjee government “inherited” from its Left Front predecessor.
He said in the field of education, Bengal has jumped from 17th position last year to third in the country.
“In case of governance, we have jumped from tenth position to the second position in the country,” the minister said.
He claimed the state has conducted the largest tax reform “ever conducted in the country”.
“No state in the country has dematerialized VAT certificates…what you get back is a dematerialised VAT certificate that the government has introduced in the sector. No connection with any bureaucrat in the process is required,” Mitra added.
Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh said his state would be the destination for investment in India.
Inviting IITians, he said: “You all are the rising stars. I am welcoming all to invest in the state and be our knowledge partner.”
Projecting the development in the state’s agriculture sector, he said it had recorded a growth of 6.4 percent.
“Chhattisgarh is the first state to guarantee Right to Food,” he said.
On power sector, the chief minister said Chhattisgarh was the only one that had zero power cust.
Assuring the entrepreneurs that in the coming years the state would ensure that there would not be any power cuts, Raman Singh said: “We want to have the best physical infrastructure in the country in the next 10 years.”
Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar said his state “is already a very bright star in the West”.
Highlighting the development story of Goa, Parrikar, who is an IITian, said, “Our health parameters are comparable with the West. The infant mortality rate has almost touched nearly single digit.”
He said the state has 100 percent broadband connectivity
“We have computer penetration comparable to Singapore…We have almost 98 percent mobile penetration,” Parrikar added.
More than 1,000 overseas participants from the US, Britain, Canada, Singapore and Australia, as also the Middle East, have congregated for PanIIT, being held in Kolkata for the first time.
Over 3,000 delegates, including policy makers, consultants and planners from both the public and private sectors, are participating in the event.