Kolkata, Aug 23 (IANS) West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari said on Sunday that Defence Minister Rajnath Singh assured him of more investment in the state in the coming days.

Adhikari was speaking at Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers (GRSE) Limited where Rajnath Singh laid the foundation stones for five brownfield expansion projects worth Rs 3,420 crore.

Three of these are for GRSE and two for Metal and Steel Factory (MSF) at Ishapore, which is a unit of Yantra India Limited (YIL).

“As I was accompanying the Defence Minister from the airport, he assured me of more investment in West Bengal. I requested him for assistance, similar to what has been given to states like Uttar Pradesh. Immediately after this (Bharatiya Janata Party) government came to power in the state on May 4, Rajnath Singh Ji told me that he would visit West Bengal with investment, and he kept his promise,” the Chief Minister said.

He went on to say how previous state governments never co-operated or co-ordinated with the Centre for the state’s development.

The previous Chief Ministers would not even attend Central government programmes, Chief Minister Adhikari added.

“Chief Ministers would not attend events even after being invited. This negativity of 49 years led to total collapse of industry in the state. There is unemployment. But things have started changing in just 106 days since our (BJP) government took over,” he said.

He accused the previous Trinamool Congress government of paying little attention to matters of national security.

“In 2016, when Rajnath Singh Ji was the Union Home Minister, he wrote to the state government, asking for land to be allotted to the Border Security Force (BSF) for additional outposts and fencing of the India-Bangladesh Border. Nothing happened. This has nothing to do with politics. Within days of taking over, we have allotted 90 per cent of the land to the BSF,” the Chief Minister said.

He also assured GRSE of all assistance, saying that land for industry will be made available whenever required.

The three projects of GRSE, at Kolkata, Shalimar in Howrah and Raichak in South 24 Parganas will enhance the shipyard’s capabilities.

Once these facilities are developed, GRSE will be able to build and repair larger ships, both naval and commercial.

GRSE Chairman and Managing Director Commodore P.R. Hari (Retd), spoke on how the company is the largest heavy engineering unit in the state.

“The Defence Minister has always stood by us and we are thankful for that. Since 2019, GRSE has launched 24 warships and delivered 22 of them. We now have the capacity to build 28 ships of various classes concurrently,” he said.

Once the new facilities are ready, GRSE’s capacity will go up to 32 platforms.

It will also be able to build warships that are up to 200 metres in length and commercial vessels that have a gross tonnage of 60,000 tonnes.

–IANS

jg/khz