US Consul General Meets CM: Land identified for game-changing silicon chip factory, says Mamata

The chief minister announced after US Consul General Kathy Giles-Diaz met her at the state secretariat on Thursday.

“We have already identified and readied the land. They (US) also have seen one land. Once this Centre gets ready, it will be a global phenomenon. They will be able to use our talents here. The infrastructure will help in boosting our talents,” Banerjee said.

The CM said that during Thursday’s meeting, attended by Chief Secretary Manoj Pant and his predecessor Alapan Bandyopadhyay, a proposal was made to “consider formulating a roadmap in the second week of January next year”. “In February next year, we will hold our Bengal Global Business Summit. Before that, around January second week, we proposed that a meeting should be held with all the stakeholders so that we can make a roadmap,” the CM said.

Stating that the project would be a big achievement for the state, Banerjee expressed hope that once in place, the project would generate a huge employment. “It will be a big achievement for West Bengal. There will be a huge employment generation,” she said.

She said that the state IT department and Webel were “working on this for the last three years”. “We have been pursuing this for the last three years,” she said, further mentioning six industrial and rail corridors being set up in the state.

She said her government would soon be filling 12,000 vacancies for the state police.

After the meeting, the US Consulate in Kolkata wrote on X, “Consul General Kathy Giles-Diaz met West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today in Kolkata. They discussed the close ties between the people of West Bengal and the United States, including in areas of business, investment, culture, and education.”

The India-US joint project was announced following talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Joe Biden in Wilmington last Saturday. The project will be enabled by support from the India Semiconductor Mission and will be part of a strategic technology partnership among Bharat Semi, 3rdiTech, and the US Space Force. It will not only become India’s first, but one of the world’s first multi-material fabrication plants for national security, people aware of the matter said.

Undersea cable landing station to start working from 2026: Amit Mitra

Amit Mitra, the principal chief advisor to the CM, said on Thursday that an undersea cable landing station will be operational in Digha in Purba Medinipur district in the first quarter of 2026. Speaking on the sidelines of the Indo-Pacific Economic Conclave 2024 organised by the Bengal Chamber of Commerce, Mitra said the cable landing station project, implemented by Reliance Jio, will significantly enhance internet connectivity and data transfer capabilities in the region.

Currently, all signals in eastern India are routed through Mumbai or Chennai, leading to latency. In August 2020, the state had given its nod for the

Rs 1,000-crore project.