Mr Arun Maira, Member Planning Commission came to Kolkata today and held a meeting on Urbanisation and Industrialisation aspirations of West Bengal. Mr Manish Gupta, Minister and Mr Samar Ghosh, Chief Secretary were also present.
.
I said that the vision in the state's urbanisation strategy was to make Bengal the Eastern Gateway of India. I said that infrastructure must precede development, that there should be a conscious attempt to over design so that we never lag behind in infrastructure in the future. We needed a State Planning Institute to design and implement infrastructure by plotting demographic evolution. We also needed a State Skill Development Institute to train workers in mechanical tools and machines so that we have skilled manpower to run the cranes and pavers. I said that there should be reliance on PPP. I said that DBOM (Design, Build, Operate and Maintain) should be the key driver to ensure that assets perform for the lifecycle.
Importantly Sir, the State must develop a mechanism of evaluating (undertaking comprehensive due dilligence) of each and every project (infrastructure/industry/social) to ensure that all stakeholder objectives are met.
ReplyDeleteComprehensive due dilligence would include feasibility of the market potential, social & livelyhoood impacts, technical issues, financial, legal cum institutional and environmental. While it may take some time to develop in-house capabilities towards undertaking such comprehensive due-dilligences, till then services of professional organisations may be deployed in this regard.
As they say: best is the enemy of good
ReplyDelete