INVESTMENT ISLAND

“YOU COME AND SETTLE HERE. HAVE YOR OWN TOWNSHIP. I AM ready to offer you an island off the Bengal coast. Play golf there.” These spirited words came from West Bengal’s Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee two years ago while wooing Japanese investors at a business meet in Kolkata.
The island on offer was Nayachar. Bengal’s ‘naya’ address for the proposed chemical hub is a silt-created landmass that has risen from the depths of the river Hooghly, an island occupied by 3,000 fishermen. It lies separated by a tongue of water from the industrial port of Haldia that hosts the single-largest Japanese foreign direct investment (FDI) in India in the shape of MCC PTA India, a unit of Mitsubishi Chemicals Corp.
This week, Nayachar was the Chief Minister’s answer to the Nandigram standoff that had nearly derailed his big industry plans. The 15,000-acre stretch of barren space on the island is Bhattacharjee’s last hope for inviting investments in a Petroleum, Chemicals & Petrochemicals Investment Region (PCPIR).
Hydraulic engineers at the Kolkata Port Trust, trace the island’s formation to the 1930s. The process might have been precipitated by the construction of submerged sea dykes or guide walls around Nayachar as part of a “river training” programme in the ‘80s. The walls were built to maintain the navigability of big ships.
The good news is that the Nayachar is still growing. The bad news: the draught has been reducing at stretches restricting movement of ships. Says Dr AK Chanda, chairman of the Kolkata Port Trust, “We had set up the guide walls in the ‘80s. We had also undertaken dredging activities near Haldia and deposited the silt on Nayachar.”
Nayachar is now a 21-km long island shaped like a fish—it’s widest in the middle where it stretches up to 6 km. Motorised country boats are the only link with Haldia, which is separated from the island by a kilometre and a half of the Hooghly’s waters.
The two banks of the river are a study in contrast. On the Haldia side, scores of smokey chimneys from the existing industrial units rise into the sky. On the other is a vast verdant stretch, mostly devoid of any man-built structures.
Nayachar’s viability as a chemical hub is a chapter that will unfold in the days to come but the island’s story is absorbing. By all accounts it appears that the island was virtually up for grabs by Comrades aspiring to make quick money and get rich.
Away from public glare in this backyard of beyond, ruling front comrades have been trying their luck with different ventures—from tourism to prawn farming—with varying degrees of success. Private enterprise, mostly fish cultivation by party faithfuls, thrived even as government funds were pumped in to exploit the island’s potential. Since the mid-’80s, Nayachar with its abundant land has turned into a happy hunting ground for business.
A couple of brick kilns were the first to come up as private enterprise. Fishing activity with Nayachar as a base began to grow rapidly, often funded by comrades from the mainland. The number of those who made a living out of their catch in the river also grew.
The island’s only teashop is now a haunt where fishermen gather and discuss the chemical hub. Unlike Nandigram, the CPI(M) has no opponents here. One of the few concrete structures on the island is a half-finished CPI(M) party office. A faded red party flag still flutters before the office.
So, when you ask the men at the teashop if they favour opening up this island for industry, there are no contradictory voices. “Who are we to decide? Better ask the dhoti-punjabi clad babus about it,” say ay fishermen Arati Dhiresh and Dwijen. Even the most stubborn of the fisherfolk, however, are hopeful. As Dhiresh adds: “Why not? We have no legal status here. If industry comes, maybe our children will benefit.”
Till then the island provides its inhabitants with enough to live by. Himangshu Bhuniya, who settled here about 40 years ago, says rather contentedly: “We set up small thatched huts to accommodate our families on this barren land. We had plenty of air to breathe and the depths of the seas to stir with our nets. We can survive on Rs 100 a day, enough for what all we need in our lives.”
Over the years, migration increased and the fishing community, now estimated at 3,000, is described as “illegal settlers”. These “illegals” are the only residents of Nayachar. The others who work here all live on the mainland and travel to the island every morning.
The activities on the island prompted the CPI(M) party bosses in Haldia to take control of things. A team comprising Fisheries Minister Kiranmoy Nanda of the Socialist Party, member of Parliament Lakshman Seth and the then Midnapore Marxist party boss Sukumar Sengupta inspected the island in the mid-’80s and decided to regulate the activity around Nayachar. According to an estimate of the Fishery Department, nearly 16 sq km area of the island is now under various forms of pisciculture while 22 sq km lies barren. However, it took almost 10 years from 1987, when large tracts were handed over to the Fisheries Department, for actual government funds to flow in. The biggest tranche meant for prawn culture was of over Rs 13 crore that came under the brackish water aquaculture development project—a Government of India enterprise.
As many as 13 cooperatives were set up and 315 ponds for prawn farming dug up with the money. The cooperatives engaged nearly 650 fishermen but not those who were residents of the island. The labourers were transported form the mainland. Comrades who became members chipped in with capital to try their luck in prawn exports once the Fisheries Department created the ponds with an integrated water supply reservoir in Nayachar. The first fishermen’s Shramik Union was formed on August 16, 1996 under the CITU.
But Sanjay Kola, a CITU leader, admits that the ventures did not succeed for a number of reasons starting from lack of capital to frequent outbreak of disease in fishponds to lack of technology. Most of the cooperatives are in the red and the ponds are now run by entrepreneurs from Norghat, Mohisadal, Nandigram, Sutahata and Haldia.
Bansibadan Jana, is one such entrepreneur who along with other members—all party comrades—control as many as 28 ponds in Nayachar. “It’s a mixed fortune,” said Jana, “sometimes it is profitable, sometimes it is not.”
For Minister Nanda, the island seems an “an ideal place for a chemical hub.” He adds: “We will facilitate the process of setting up the hub. We are ready to give up our fish farm activities for the greater cause. Fish production in the state will not be affected.”
After the fishery cooperatives failed, the Government’s next big plan for Nayachar was to shortlist 60 people from the mainland and distribute 20 acres each to them for any venture they chose—pisciculture, tourism or farming. The preparations were under way, say party sources in Haldia.
Then came the Chief Minister’s surprise choice. Nayachar would be part of the chemical hub.
With comrades ousting comrades here, no one expects a repeat of Nandigram now.