• My guest this week is the man whose responsibility it is to industrialise W. Bengal and catch up on the lost years -- W. Bengal Minister of Industry & Commerce Nirupam Sen. It's a tough job. I don't think many people realise outside how tough it is to be industry minister of Bengal.

Over a long period, W. Bengal has not been able to see new investment. It has just started coming in.

• It has seen a lot of investment go away, actually.

Right from the Sixties and Seventies, a lot of capital has flown out of W. Bengal owing to various reasons and I'm not getting into them. Even in the Eighties, the situation did not improve. Things have not been very conducive for industrial development.

• What your chief minister calls the lost years of W. Bengal.

Actually, investment started gaining momentum after 1991, when the Government of India decided to do away with the licensing regime and said every state should try to have private investment. The then chief minister, Jyoti Basu, adopted policy resolutions inviting both private and foreign direct investment. That's the time the state government started seeking private investment with full force. But that attempt did not yield the desired result. In 1993-94 there was a recession in the country. As a result, industrial investment didn't turn up, but from 1997-98 the situation started changing. After 2001 private investors really showed interest. They started coming in and seeing the opportunities. Some successful ventures of that period have also emboldened the confidence of investors, like Haldia Petrochemicals, Mitsubishi.

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