PRIME Minister Narendra Modi unveiled connectivity projects valued at Rs 18,680 crore in West Bengal on Saturday, and said a new chapter of India’s development was being written from the State. The PM asserted that these projects will give new momentum to West Bengal and eastern India, boosting business and enterprise. “A new chapter is being written for West Bengal and eastern India’s development from Kolkata.... Lives of lakhs of people will be eased; they will get new opportunities,” Modi said after inaugurating and laying the foundation stone for the projects at a programme here. He said these projects will further strengthen eastern India’s logistics system. “These new projects related to roads, rail and ports are opening new vistas for Bengal’s modern future,” he said.

 

The PM said that these projects will benefit everyone, including farmers, traders, entrepreneurs and students. “New opportunities will be created in the tourism sector also,” he said, adding that local enterprise and services will get a boost from the projects. “We are determined to ensure that Bengal, which once showed the way to the rest of India, will once again become a developed state and regain its glory,” he said. Modi said that strong connectivity and modern infrastructure will become the foundation of a developed Bengal. The PM said that completion of the Kharagpur-Moregram expressway, for which he laid the foundation stone, will speed up economic activity. He laid the foundation stone for five sections of the 231 km-long four-lane Kharagpur-Moregram economic corridor, which will reduce the distance by around 120 km and save nearly seven to eight hours.

 

The road, which is part of the economic corridor between Kharagpur and Siliguri, will pass through Paschim Medinipur, Bankura, Hooghly, Purba Bardhaman, Birbhum and Murshidabad districts, officials said. The corridor will integrate key national highways, including NH-16, NH-19, NH-14 and NH-12, thereby strengthening multi-corridor connectivity, they said. The PM also laid the foundation stone for the construction of a 5.6-km-long four-lane Dubrajpur Bypass and additional four-lane major bridges over the Kangshabati and Shilabati rivers on NH-14.

 

The PM said that a mission has been undertaken to modernise India’s railways. Addressing a rally at the Brigade Parade Ground here, Modi launched a sharp attack on the State’s ruling party, accusing it of encouraging infiltration, changing the demography of the state and insulting constitutional institutions, while asserting that the “countdown has begun” for the Mamata Banerjee Government ahead of the Assembly polls. He claimed that in many places “demography has changed”, Bengali Hindus were “deliberately being made minorities”, and alleged that the TMC opposed granting citizenship to persecuted Hindu refugees. The Prime Minister said the ruling party feared the SIR exercise because it would remove the names of illegal voters.

 

“These people oppose SIR so that the names of infiltrators cannot be removed from the voter list, and the voter list cannot be purified. They are not even ready to remove the names of those who have already died,” Modi said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also accused the ruling TMC of “crossing all limits” by insulting President Droupadi Murmu, alleging that the party had disrespected not only the head of the State but also the country’s tribals and the Constitution. The President had expressed displeasure over the last-minute change of venue of her programme near Siliguri and questioned why neither Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee nor any state minister was present at the airport to receive her. “The TMC has not just insulted the President, but it has insulted the country’s tribals, the people of this country and the Constitution. The TMC has crossed all limits by insulting President Droupadi Murmu,” Modi said