Indifferent Industry

Photograph@Arijit Sen--All Rights Reserved

I was in Calcutta in June. Went to report on the civic elections. Then stayed back for a week as help was needed in the CNN-IBN Calcutta bureau. From elections to the beginning of the football World Cup, to the updates of a train derailment it was interesting to report from the city. But one report that will stay with me is the one on sick industries in Bengal. During my stay in the city, Railway Wagon maker Burn Standard got Rs 1,000 crore loan writen off from the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs. Burn Standard had turned sick 16 years ago. Both the Left and Trinamool claimed credit. We travelled inside Burn Standard in Howrah. The spectacle that is a combination of politics, trade union, neglect that has killed industry in Bengal was evident. Even with the loans written off, the future seems trapped in all these.

Photograph@Arijit Sen--All Rights Reserved

That is Swapan Roy, one of the oldest employees at Burn Standard. For him the celebrations had little or no meaning--at least that's what I felt. "Today, I am remembering my co-workers many of whom had no other option but to jump from the sinking ship in despair. Just 500 of us stayed back". With elections round the corner, there is a newfound love of industry in Bengal. But for West Bengal to come out of an industrial coma will require more than promises and votebank politics.