Brand M rises from budget

KOLKATA: The industry loved Brand Buddha. Now, it may soon begin a courtship with Brand Mamata.
Local business leaders wary of the Trinamool Congress chief for her strident protests against land acquisition for industrial use were effusive in their praise of Mamata on Friday for having brilliantly balanced her political compulsions with her responsibilities as a Union minister.
The most handsome compliment came from RPG Group vice-chairman Sanjiv Goenka: "She has done the impossible by packing at least 10 annual budgets into one." Goenka went on to add that Mamata had presented "a bright, bold, refreshing rail budget, which gives izzat to people, speed and comfort to passengers and hope and opportunities to the industry."
Echoing the sentiment, Exide chairman emeritus S B Ganguly said Mamata had proved through her budget that the ma-maati-manush theme could be integrated with the railways' needs of garnering more resources. "From Bengal's perspective, it's just the kind of rail budget that would provide a fillip to industrialisation. The decisions to set up a coach factory, extension of the eastern freight corridor to Dankuni and the use extra railway land for commercial use will spur business activity and also result in massive job creation," Ganguly said.
Ambuja Realty chairman Harsh Neotia said utilisation of surplus railway land for commercial use would attract a lot of interest from industry as many of the plots were in metro cities. Bharat Chamber of Commerce president Pavan Poddar said the establishment of a coach factory and enhancing the capacity for producing wagons would boost the state's economy.