From 50 Years Ago: Pass Buck, Seize Paper

Pass Buck, Seize Paper

One of the great tragedies of the neo-backward State of West Bengal is the deep-rooted propensity of everybody in power to advise everybody else and expect him to act—when some public interest is involved—rather than take the initiative in going ahead. The State Government has never had a policy to attract new dynamic industries; those that came up during the fifties and sixties owed their location in the State purely to market factors and inertia. Instead of formulating a policy or initiating new ideas, it fell in with the practice of other States to set up a State Industrial Development Corporation two years back. This body, according to its chairman, D L Mazumdar, now finds that it is short of funds and, perhaps, short of a policy framework too.