Business   

Singur impact only short-term: Assocham chief Sajjan Jindal

KOLKATA: Sajjan Jindal, Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of JSW Steel, said that the Singur happenings would only have a short-term impact on the State’s industry climate. “There may be a short-term setback only of say three to four months,” he said after an interactive session between the industry captains and West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.

Mr. Jindal, who chaired the meeting in his capacity as President of the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry, said that the wave of negative publicity now swirling around the State would cast a shadow on West Bengal’s industrialisation drive, but not for long. “It will push people away only in the near future”. He shared Mr. Bhattacharjee’s optimism that the Singur project might just survive the current spell of controversy. “I am entrenched in this State where we hope to inaugurate our 10 million tonne steel project on November 2. However, it is in this State where we feel most welcome and it is one of the most industry-friendly States,” he said while talking to reporters.

On land for industry, the Mr. Jindal, whose company evolved a unique compensation package which included shares for landlosers, said that finding land for big industrial units would become a problem and it was advisable to avoid fertile land trying instead for fallow land and dry land. However, some sacrifices would be needed from the farmers too, he said. JSW is setting up a steel unit in Salboni in West Medinipur and Mr. Jindal urged his fellowmen to earmark some of their investment for West Bengal. An Assocham study said that between January 2007 and June 2008 the State had attracted Rs. 3,00,859 crore of investment proposals.

The Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), however, said in a statement that it was disappointed with the developments in Singur and global attention was now on the developments. SIAM appealed to all concerned to initiate a process to arrive at a solution that would take the project forward.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

OVL virtually beats China for Imperial takeover
8-9% GDP growth is here to stay, says Chidambaram
Max New York unveils new branding, logo
Singur impact only short-term: Assocham chief Sajjan Jindal
Rupee nearing 44-mark
Maples launches course for IT infrastructure management
Sensex recovers early losses
Rivaaz brand from Gitanjali
HP launches desktops for children
Canon’s mobile photo printer
Nasscom hails new U.K. immigration system
Exchange Rates
Bullion Rates
Britannia launches NutriChoice 5 Grain
flyLAL selects Ramco’s aviation software
20 Microns fixes price band at Rs. 50-55
Hyundai Construction to expand
BayTalkitec appoints marketing director
open2save and Zook announce partnership
BGR Energy bags air fin cooler order

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu