The Indian Plastic Federation has initiated the process to set up two plastic parks in Bengal on Durgapur Expressway, close to the where the Tata small car factory was to come up.

The members of the federation are in talks with a private developer to come up with a 100-acre park at Singur while the other park, on a 50- acre parcel, is being planned at Dankuni.

About 100 units, in the small and medium scale, are likely to come up in the two parks, creating employment opportunities to about 10,000 people, Sisir Jalan, president of the IPF, said on Friday.

The units will begin to be operational by the first half of 2024.

“We have already received applications from 70 of our members to set up units. More are likely to join in the future,” Jalan said on the occasion of the inauguration of Indplas 22 — an exhibition of plastic in Calcutta.

The Federation will approach the Bengal government to grant the status of industrial park to these two parks under Scheme for Approved Industrial Park (SAIP).

The plastic industry has proliferated in Bengal after Haldia Petrochemicals started commercial production in 2001.

It was followed up by a few other large petrochemical downstream units such Mitsubishi PTA and Dhunseri.

There are about 5,000 plastic units in Bengal, spread across Howrah, Hooghly, South and North 24 Parganas, providing employment to 50,000 people directly, a statement from the IPF said.

A poly/plastic park was earlier set up at Sankrail by the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) where about 50 units operate.

In the new parks, the Federation members will buy land from a private party and develop common infrastructure. The cost of development, including the land price, will be about Rs 4 crore an acre.

The common infrastructure, such as road, electricity, common testing unit, meeting/conference hall will be created in assistance with the state, taking advantage of the SAIP scheme, which aims to encourage the private sector to set up industrial parks on their own land and offer MSME enterprises to set up units.

The scheme aims to catalyse growth of MSMEs through creation of new industrial parks with basic common infrastructural facilities with state assistance in the form of fiscal and non-fiscal incentives.

However, apart from these parks, 50 units, with an aggregate investment worth Rs 1,500 crore, are in different stages of construction across the state, Jalan said.