Modi ministers sing Mamata Banerjee praises

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee greets Union finance minister Arun Jaitley during the Bengal Global Business Summit in Kolkata on Friday. (Photo: Abhijit Mukherjee)

Heavyweight BJP ministers from the Centre — Arun Jaitley, Piyush Goyal, Nitin Gadkari and Suresh Prabhu — on Friday showered lavish praises on the Mamata Banerjee government for treading the right path towards growth and development, and promised to extend all support in the state’s endeavour to attract investment.

The Union ministers were in the city on Ms Banerjee’s invitation to attend the second edition of the Bengal Global Business Summit.

Power minister Piyush Goyal said that a “significant paradigm shift” has been witnessed in the way investment was being attracted in Bengal. “I am glad that the Bengal government has come to realise that infrastructure is key to growth. Several big industrial houses once had their roots in West Bengal. Many of them have plans to come back to Kolkata,” Mr Goyal added.

He pointed out that Bengal had emerged as an investment hub in the recent years. “The state has come back on the map of investment after decades of unfortunate degradation of investment climate here,” the power minister added.

Sharing the same optimistic view of the investment potential in Bengal, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley said that policies of the past three-and-a-half decades had impacted the industrialisation of Bengal. Iterating that Bengal contributes to 6 to 7 per cent of the country’s GDP, he said, “Despite political differences, strong states mean a stronger India. States in the eastern part have grown lesser that the western states. We have to concentrate more on the growth of eastern states. All issues related to business and investment will be cleared expeditiously despite political differences,” he assured.

Union roads and highways minister Nitin Gadkari said an investment of Rs 37, 472 crore was in the pipeline for the overhaul of road, highway and port infrastructure in Bengal. “My party and my government are with you, so you need not worry,” he assured Ms Banerjee.