A summit on the hills

💥To attract investment, Darjeeling must be kept free of agitations

Having seized the reins of the State on the back of a violent land agitation, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has been at pains to shed the anti-industry label tagged to her since the Singur and Nandigram episodes. Little surprise then that the Trinamool Congress chief has been assiduously wooing industry ever since she entered office. The annual business jamborees have become slick, well-orchestrated events, with the occasional large presence of ministers of the Modi government and almost always a sizeable cohort of captains of industry. While projecting a pro-industry image has been an ongoing project for the State government, Ms. Banerjee’s urgency to host an investment summit last week in Darjeeling was quite a unique proposal.

The fragile hill economy was badly jolted by last year’s 104-day shutdown due to a separatist agitation launched by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM). The shutdown caused an estimated ₹500 crore loss to the ailing Darjeeling tea industry and an unquantified loss to the tourism sector, together the mainstay for the economy. The agitation, spearheaded by the erstwhile GJM chief Bimal Gurung led to a vertical split in the outfit, with the Binay Tamang faction showing keenness to initiate talks with Ms. Banerjee, even as Mr. Gurung was on the run to escape possible prosecution on charges ranging from funds misappropriation to inciting violence.

History has repeated itself, as Mr. Gurung is now in the same position as the late Subhas Ghising, the chief of the Gorkha National Liberation Fund who was banished from the hills, although he was the first to raise the spectre of a separate Gorkhaland during the Left rule.

For years thus, Darjeeling has been on a rollercoaster ride with a fragile peace and minimal development, mainly due to neglect by the governments of the day. Water scarcity, poor infrastructure (especially roads) and lack of integrated development plague Darjeeling, despite its substantial potential in segments such as timber plantation and horticulture, besides the revenue staples of tea and tourism.

This government has begun to pump in infrastructure investments now to take care of the needs of the region — including Darjeeling and its neighbouring districts — which account for 22% of the State’s population and 24% of its land.

Perhaps Darjeeling has not witnessed anything on the scale of this summit, but tourism and tea meetings have been organised by the Left Front government since 1994, when it adopted a pro-industry, liberalised outlook. It remains to be seen to what extent the youth in the hills get employment due to fresh public or private investment. A crucial prerequisite for this is to keep the region free of agitations which can shut down Darjeeling’s entry and exit points and of labour trouble in the tea gardens as was being planned on the eve of the summit. It will take this much even for an international brand such as Darjeeling to attract investments.