Launching a scathing attack on Tata Sons chairman emeritus Ratan Tata for saying that he could not see much of industrial development in West Bengal, state industries and finance minister Amit Mitra on Thursday said the veteran industrialist may have ?lost his mind?.
Mitra, a former secretary general of industry body Ficci, said Tata did not even know about the expansion plan of his own group companies in Bengal and thus he should rather concentrate on his hobby of flying planes.
?May be he has lost his mind. May be he has not got the information. I don’t know why (he said this). You should ask him why he does not know all these,? Mitra quipped when reporters urged him to comment on Tata?s observation regarding the state?s industrial development.
During a conversation with the Ladies Study Group members in the city on Wednesday evening, Tata said, ?It has been about two years since I came to Kolkata… While driving from Rajarhat, I saw it is an unbelievable change in terms of new buildings, but it still looks like a countryside, underdeveloped…I do not see that much signs of industrial development.?
Rattled by Tata’s comment, the Bengal minister said the 73-year-old industrialist might not know that several companies, including Tata Consultancy Services and Tata Metaliks, were expanding their operations in the state.
?TCS, the company of his own group, earlier told the chief minister (Mamata Banerjee) that it is setting up a new campus on a 40-acre land and that will create additional 20,000 jobs. Perhaps he does not know about that. Tata Metaliks also applied to us last week to expand its facility here,? Mitra said on the sidelines of ?ICT East 2014?, organised by CII Eastern
Region.
?Does not he know about Anil Ambani?s Rs. 600 crore cement plant in the state? And Emami is also setting up a cement plant. If I give a list of investment proposals that the state has already received, then one will take a whole day to read it out?I am really surprised that he has not been briefed by his office,? the minister added.
Responding to a set of questions at the Ladies Study Group?s event last evening, Ratan Tata further said his decision to shift the Nano project from West Bengal?s Singur to Gujarat?s Sanand was a prudent one although it involved a very high
negative cost.
