Photo: SUSHANTA PATRONOBISH

TALKING INVESTMENTS: Reliance Industries Limited Chairman Mukesh Ambani with West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee at a press conference in Kolkata on Wednesday.

KOLKATA: Chairman of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) Mukesh Ambani said here on Wednesday that his company would be investing up to Rs. 4,000 crore in West Bengal. This would be used for setting up an agro-retail chain across the State as well as for bringing in natural gas from the Godavari basin in Andhra Pradesh via Orissa for industrial and other purposes.

He made the announcement at a press conference after holding talks with Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee at the State Secretariat. While between Rs. 1,500 crore to Rs. 2,000 crore would be invested for the agro-retail chain another Rs. 1,500 to Rs. 2,000 crore would be spent on bringing natural gas to Haldia.

Mr. Bhattacharjee said the retail chain for agro-business would benefit both farmers and the consumer. "Work on the project would start very soon. The sites had already been identified and the project would cover all the districts of the State. The requirement for land was in small blocks at different places," he said.

"Our primary focus is to link farmers with consumers by transforming agro-business in the State into agro-processing," Mr. Ambani said. Setting up the agro-retail chain across the State and in Kolkata would take over three years, he added. He said his company had signed an agreement with the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation for supplying natural gas to the State from Andhra Pradesh.

The Left Front stepped into its 30th year in power on Wednesday. Several programmes were held across the State to commemorate the occasion.

The Front assumed power under the leadership of Jyoti Basu on June 21, 1977. Since then it has won six successive Assembly elections — the last being the one held in April-May when it won over two-thirds of the seats, getting more than 50 per cent of the total votes polled.

"We are to move ahead into the future as we step into the 30th year keeping in mind the fact that our responsibilities towards the people, particularly the common man, have increased manifold" Biman Bose, Chairman of the Left Front Committee, told The Hindu .

Pro-people policies

"The policies of the Left Front led by the Communist Party of India [Marxist] have been pro-people," through the past three decades, "and the common people, particularly the poorer sections, consider the Left Front Government as their friend," Mr. Bose, who is also CPI (M) State committee secretary, said.

The Government would be looking at "implementing its programme and continuing the struggle for improving the lot of the weaker sections of society along with carrying out its commitments towards development," he said.

The Front is conscious of its responsibilities to those who helped it win (the last elections) and those who did not vote for it. "We are to move forward to work in a better way to serve their interests too," he added.

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