Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has asked the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) and CREDAI to find out the exact number of unscrupulous builders who have cheated the buyers by selling the same flat to more than one person.

She presided over a meeting of the West Bengal Industrial Promotion Board at Nabanna this afternoon. Chief Secretary HK Dwivedi and other senior bureaucrats were present at the meeting.

Representatives from CREDAI alleged that some small builders had taken the buyers for a ride by selling the same flat to more than one person. State housing minister Aroop Biswas echoed their voice following which Miss Banerjee asked the civic authorities and the CREDAI to look into the matter and prepare a list of such builders and asked them to submit their report to the chief secretary.

The private housing lobby said the ease of doing business had helped them a lot and they were having regular meeting with the senior officials of state urban development and municipal affairs department and the sector was expected to fetch Rs 20,000 crore in the next five years. They thanked Miss Banerjee for giving relaxation in stamp duty which had helped the buyers.

Miss Banerjee said a delegation of the World Trade Centre would sign a MoU with the state government in her presence on 21 March. The office will come up on 35 lakh square feet area and bring investment worth Rs 1500 crore. She said the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) had in its position 2,600 acres of land.

West Bengal is in on its way to revive its old goodwill in engineering sector. Titagarh Wagons have bagged the supply of Metro coaches in Mumbai. Tata Hitachi has closed its factory in Tatanagar and moved to Kharagpur. The firm will manufacture mining machineries, she remarked.

The chief secretary said a mega aqua hub was coming up at Nayachar. A floating jetty will come up shortly and there are scope of PPP model in the sector, he maintained. The chief minister said the state government should explore the possibility of inland waterways. “We have enormous scope in inland waterways and aquatic sports. We should talk to the experts in this sphere and if required should sent some senior officials to foreign countries for discussion,” she observed.

CS Diwedi said the final geological report for the coal hub at Deocha Pachami was expected in May and mining was likely to start towards the end of this year.

The CM also set up a team comprising the industries minister Dr Shashi Panja, state finance minister Chandrima Bhattacharya, tourism minister Babul Supriyo and two senior bureaucrats, namely, Antara Acharya and Vandana Yadav. The team would look after lands that remained unutilised. The team will also oversee the billboards that will be put up to inform people about the industrial development that has taken part in the state. Miss Banerjee regretted that a section of electronic media did not show the progress that had been made in the industry sector. She said airports would come up in Malda, Cooch Behar and Balurghat to improve connectivity.

“In the MSME sector we are doing excellent work and 41 lakh MSME units have come up in the state where more than one crore people are working. It has brought industry worth Rs 1.14 lakh crore.

Miss Banerjee proposed to make actor-turned-politician Dev to become the state’s tourism brand ambassador