Homegrown industry majors Dhunseri Ventures and Berger Paints have sought land from the Bengal government to set up two manufacturing units at Panagarh industrial park in Burdwan, documents presented in the state Assembly revealed.

The two projects will stand apart as the state has not been the recipient of many large manufacturing units in recent years, though several small and medium scale industries have come up in Bengal.

Promoted by Chandra Kumar Dhanuka, Dhunseri plans to put up a packaging material unit primarily targeting food processing, cosmetics, personal care and pharmaceuticals. It has applied for 38 acres at the industrial park.

Stock market listed Berger Paints, India’s second-largest paints company, is seeking 22 acres at the park to build a construction chemicals and putty manufacturing unit. This would be its third unit in Bengal, the other two located in Shibpur and Rishra.

Speaking to The Telegraph, Dhanuka said the Dhunseri unit would be ready for production by March 2023. “It will entail an investment of Rs 400 crore. We have ordered plants and machinery from Germany,” Dhanuka said.

The Panagarh plant will be a downstream unit of Dhunseri’s Haldia unit where it makes PET that goes into making plastic material. “There are no manufacturers of such polyester packaging material in the east,” Dhanuka explained.

The unit will create close to 200 permanent jobs in the first phase, sources said.

Berger’s proposed plant at full capacity is expected to manufacture 120,000 tpa of construction chemicals and putty and the company will explore manufacturing additional products as well.

“Our existing factories in Bengal are old and there is no land to build anymore. So, we applied for around 22 acres at Panagarh industrial park. We are yet to get the land,” said Abhijit Roy, managing director and CEO of Berger Paints.

“As of now the plan is in the drawing board stage. Once we get the land transferred, we will start thinking about investment. We will make some construction chemical products. We were originally thinking of Rishra but once we will have this land, we will set up the entire construction chemical range at this location (Panagarh),” said Roy.

According to sources, its proximity to Durgapur expressway and approved clearances for red category industries were among the reasons Berger chose Panagarh.

These two projects apart, the vote-on-account disclosed a Rs 150 crore investment to upgrade Andal airport to international standards in two years and a Rs 100 crore allocation to develop an industrial park in Raghunathpur, Purulia. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee again iterated the state’s focus to develop the Tajpur port, Deocha Pachami coal block, Silicon Valley hub and financial hub at Rajarhat.