West Bengal offers land to Wipro and Infosys

KOLKATA: September 17, 2009: The West Bengal government will formally invite information technology majors — Wipro and Infosys — to take immediate possession of 45 acres of land being offered to each of them at Rajarhat on the outskirts of the city and start constructing their facilities there.

On September 7, the government had decided not to proceed with the proposed joint sector IT township in and around Rajarhat in the wake of allegations of illegal land deals by a private partner of the project.

“We are ready to give 45 acres of land to both the IT giants, Wipro and Infosys. We will contact them and ask them to come…The units they set up will create huge job opportunities – an estimated 16,000 jobs – within the next two to three years,” Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said here on Thursday.

The State government will contact the two companies on Friday with the offer.

The sites identified for the two IT giants is in the custody of the State’s Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd and has adequate social infrastructure that will suit the interests of the two companies, Mr Bhattacharjee said. “The price of the land being offered to them will be negotiated with the companies,” he added. Both the IT majors have been keen to set up units in the State. “In the case of Wipro, which already has a facility in the city, it is a matter of expansion of their activities. As for Infosys, they have been very eager to come.”

Admitting that it was “unfortunate” that criminal activities “of which we had no idea earlier” were being engaged in for acquiring land for a section of the proposed joint sector IT township within which the two companies had earlier been offered 90 acres of land each, the Chief Minister said his government had decided that “it would not be morally correct” for it to go ahead with the project.

BENGAL CPI (M) CALLS FOR MASS RALLIES AND MASS CONVENTIONS

KOLKATA, 17th September 2009: In its one-day meeting held on 17 September, the state committee of the Bengal CPI (M) gave a rousing call for mass assemblages and mass conventions to be continued all over the state to defend democracy and to foil imperialist designs. Biman Basu later briefed the media.

Earlier Biman had led the discussion at the state committee meeting where Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was present throughout. Buddhadeb later briefed the media at the CPI (M) Bengal HQ.

One needs to discuss especial attention some of the mot pints that were debated discussed, and resolved at the meeting. The Bengal CPI (M) leader was clear in stressing the pro-rich and anti-poor outlook of the Congress-led régime at the centre.

Biman had little doubt that as the days would rush by the urge for consumerism and the disruption of people’s unity would be actively pushed forth and unimpeded by the Indian ruling classes that held a vice-like grip over the rich-dominated central government. Attacks on the pro-poor Left especially the three CPI (M)-led LF governments in the country would increase incessantly.

The speaker drew specific examples to show the unabashed pro-people bias the central government displayed with garishness. The points to note include disinvestment en masse, massive financial benefits being accrue or big business, especially MNCs operating in India, and a wide tax cut across the board for those in the super-rich category, miniscule as the population of this kind may be.

It is against these policies, continued Biman that a continuous, organised, militant movement of the mass of the people must be built up and there was no time to be lost. Biman discussed in great depth the political situation coming up in Bengal. He recalled the massive assemblage of the people on 31 August and called it a success thanks to the months of campaign that had preceded it in thousands of cities, townships, villages, and hamlets in the remotest corners of the state.

Biman also informed the state committee that the task of improving and further augmenting the Party organisation was a necessary task of supreme importance at the present point in time in Bengal. The Party functioning must be made to move ahead apace, keeping the interest of the working people firmly in focus.

Rectification campaign, reminded Biman, was not, could not by its very character, a marsumi, or seasonal job. It must continue with even greater fervour in the present political ambience when attacks were raining down on the CPI (M) and the Left from the imperialist-backed class enemies.

Party education must be stressed at all functional levels of the Bengal CPI (M) was the consensus of the state committee which also agreed to what Biman focussed light on, i.e., increasing the circulation of not just the Bengali language Party press but also of central organs like the People’s Democracy, and Lok Lehar.

Addressing the state committee, Buddhadeb said that the governmental functioning needed to be accelerated in terms of targeted development for the mass of the people of Bengal. The people must be approached and told that the attempt to build up terror in Bengal must be resisted at all costs, for the sake of peace, progress, and prosperity.

The slogan and the cry ‘working class, unite!’ should be highlighted in the form of a political drive. The Bengal CPI (M) on its part must continue to play the vanguard rôle of urging on the masses to take the state of Bengal forward in all developmental sectors, agrarian and industrial, head always held high.