West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday made it clear that her government

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would not get into any trouble by trying to acquire land for industry and the industry will have to purchase its own land from the market directly.

At the same time, she said that the state government would set up a 23-member core committee, comprising mainly representatives from chamber of commerce and other industry bodies, to sort out all disputes and differences across the table. The state commerce and industries and IT minister Partha Chattopadhyay, state finance minister Amit Mitra and few concerned departmental secretaries will also be member of that committee.

In her first ever interface with the industry after taking over as chief minister, Banerjee said in her characteristic manner, “It (the core committee) will be like your own cabinet, you run it. I will be out of this committee, but of course, I will be with you. You meet regularly and make your industry minister run and be always on his toes.” She added, “The whole idea is that I don’t want the investors to run around from one place to another and get harassed.”

The core committee will have to meet either once a week or once a fortnight, she said. The chief minister also made it clear that all ministers and bureaucrats and even industry will have to function in a time-bound manner. “If you want to invest and do something, do it within a time frame or else you let us know that you cannot do it,” the chief minister told the industry.

The proposed land policy of Mamata government has already created some fear psychosis and pressed the panic button in some quarters. Number of industrialists including ITC chairman YC Deveshwar tried to plead that when the requirement of land is large, state must intervene to bail out the industry.