The Mamata Banerjee government has decided to hold the 8th edition of the Bengal Global Business Summit on February 5 and 6 next year with the avowed intent to attract investment in the state.

The government has also agreed to go ahead with the maiden version of the shopping festival for five days from September 20 at Biswa Bangla Mela Prangan, despite the raging protest over the death of the trainee doctor at RG Kar Hospital engulfing the city.

The announcements on BGBS and the shopping festival were made at a meeting presided over by the chief minister Mamata Banerjee with the industrialists, business chambers and trade bodies at the state secretariat Nabanna on Wednesday.

The administrative decisions, pertaining to industry, came at a time when Bengal was on the boil over the doctor’s death. Even though the industrialists and trade bodies were not asked about their comments on the ongoing protests, which did not help improve the state's image on industrialisation, the chief minister did not hold back her comments on the matter.

She told the audience that the state administration has been doing all that possible to break the impasse with the striking junior doctors but without success. She asked the bureaucrats to handle the matter and involve her, only if necessary. Mamata also blamed the ultra-Left elements behind the protests and absolved the BJP from it.

While the larger context of the protests interspersed the talk, the focus of the two-hour-long discussion mostly stayed the course on business and industry. The top bureaucrats, led by the newly appointed chief secretary Manoj Pant, were present in the meeting along with Alapan Bandopadhyay who assumed charge as the chairman of West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) and Vandana Yadav, who returned as the managing director of WBIDC, after a gap of about 8 months.

Banerjee said she would like to meet the industry every quarter to take stock of the situation, understand their pain points and take administrative steps, if necessary. The CM directed all the chambers to get into full swing to make the biennial industry meet a success.

While all major chambers, such as CII, FICCI, Bengal Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Bharat Chamber of Commerce were present, only a handful of leading industrialists of the city – Umesh Chowdhary, Chandra Kumar Dhanuka, Sanjay Budhia were at Nabanna, apart from Delhi-based Y.K. Modi.

Commenting on the meeting, Budhia said with dates of the BGBS announced, industry and chambers would get into action mode and build on the success of the previous round which took place in November 2023.

During the conversation, CM carefully heard many of the industry representatives and their observations. A suggestion was made to repeal the land ceiling act in Bengal to enhance ease of doing business. The CM retorted that she has allowed conversion of leasehold land to freehold.

The CM was urged to come out with a new industrial policy to promote industry and a suggestion was made that it may be possible to do so even without giving out incentives. Bengal faces uneven competition from many states in attracting business given that it does provide financial assistance to large industries.

Representatives of the IT industry suggested that the government encourage GCC (global capabilities centre) to set up in Calcutta with a suitable policy.