“A Tale of Two Global Summits” by Minister of Information & Broadcasting and Corporate Affairs, Shri Arun Jaitley

Last week two State Governments – West Bengal and Gujarat, organized their respective

global summits.  I had an opportunity to participate in both of them.

The West Bengal Global Summit was an effort of the State Government to attract investment in

the State.  West Bengal was a key industrial State.  Beginning with the naxalite problem towards the

end of 1960s, coupled with the policies of the Left Front Government, industry moved out of the State.

Kolkata remained the principal engine of development in West Bengal’s growth.  The State has a

successful agriculture.  West Bengal has a lot of intellectual capital and in the past one decade

information technology has picked up in a big way.  West Bengal has to be redeveloped into an

industrial center once again.  My colleague Shri Nitin Gadkari, who also attended the summit, was

willing to help the State in the creation of a Kolkata-Siliguri highway.  If such a highway is combined

with an industrial corridor, it will give a major boost to West Bengal.  Creation of more townships,

better infrastructure, an industrial corridor, more effective utilization of the sea resource has to be a

future agenda of the State.

I was particularly enthused by the fact that groups representing a cross-section of industry,

both manufacturing and service sector, attended the conference.  The State would now need a

consistent pro-reform and business friendly steps in order to build confidence in the mind of present

and potential investors.  We, in the Central Government, would be extremely keen to help West

Bengal to grow.  The GST implementation will increase the revenues of West Bengal.  Part of the

proceeds of the coal block auctions will augment State’s revenue.  NITI Aayog is intended to further

decentralize the various schemes in the hands of the State Government.

Gujarat Business Summit was a magnificent affair.  The Mahatma Mandir at Gandhinagar is an

extremely impressive convention center.  This is the seventh Vibrant Gujarat show being organized

since 2003.  The prime Minister and other Ministers of the Union Government actively participated in

this year’s Vibrant Gujarat.  In fact Union Ministers have shown up for Vibrant Gujarat after ten years

of absence.  Prime Ministers, Ministers, policy makers from all over the world, large business groups –

both domestic and international, were all present at the Vibrant Gujarat.  Vibrant Gujarat has become

the principal economic convention in the country. This year Vibrant Gujarat marketed India.

A few months ago, Madhya Pradesh had organized its own investors meet.  News reports

indicate that Maharashtra is going to organize a similar meet in near future.

My participation in the West Bengal and Gujarat meet have enthused me.  The idiom,

vocabulary and mind-set of the organizers was to attract investment.  States in India are going to

compete with each other in cornering investment.  I have no doubt that the ones which consistently

and uniformly pursue reforms and business friendly policies are likely to succeed.