Three years into India’s financial liberalisation, because the licence raj was unravelling, Chief Minister Jyoti Basu signalled a tentative opening to personal capital. His authorities introduced an industrial coverage that welcomed “new know-how and funding in selective spheres” for the good thing about the financial system and of “mutual curiosity”.
Six years later, the state’s most formidable industrial challenge, Haldia Petrochemicals, was commissioned in April 2000.
A slew of memoranda of understanding had been signed with buyers, however few translated into factories or jobs. West Bengal had change into related to militant commerce unions and industrial unrest — a status that over time had prompted many firms to take their investments elsewhere. The picture proved stubbornly troublesome to shake.
It solely started to alter after Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee took workplace in November 2000. Together with his trademark “do it now” strategy, the Chief Minister made industrialisation the centrepiece of his agenda. The change was seen within the metropolis: Data Know-how (IT) firms’ campuses got here up in Salt Lake and Rajarhat, whereas gleaming buying malls and eating places started to change the industrial panorama of Calcutta, which was rechristened Kolkata in 2001.
Whereas central and north Kolkata had been outlined by their colonial structure and previous industrial districts, Salt Lake and Rajarhat on the town’s northeastern fringes emerged as new enterprise and social hubs, their glass-and-steel towers standing in sharp distinction to the older quarters.
During the last 15 years, underneath the Trinamool Congress, the state’s IT footprint acquired a notable enhance from initiatives just like the Bengal Silicon Valley Tech Hub — although a lot of it stays underneath improvement.
But, whilst new-age places of work and crisscrossing flyovers reshaped the skyline, Kolkata’s picture modified solely fleetingly.
The promise, nonetheless, was as soon as actual.
It was 2004. The setting was an interactive session on “Transformational Management”, organised by the Confederation of Indian Trade. Wipro was set to inaugurate a software program improvement centre in Kolkata, and a way of optimism crammed the room relating to West Bengal’s funding story.
The temper discovered its strongest expression in an endorsement from Wipro Chairman Azim Premji, who declared: “Your Chief Minister is doing an impressive job and he’s immediately the very best Chief Minister within the nation.”
The assertion captured the sense of risk that resonated by way of a lot of Bhattacharjee’s time in energy.
Bhattacharjee’s early years in workplace had been outlined by a push to construct a providers financial system. Though the state’s IT coverage was unveiled in January 2000, earlier than he took over as Chief Minister, the federal government organised about 50 roadshows throughout Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Mumbai, and Delhi between 2003 and 2005 earlier than taking its pitch abroad.
IT division officers zealously responded to firm emails even on Sundays, which means to sign that Bengal meant enterprise. The efforts didn’t go unnoticed.
In 2004, The Economist reported on the reformist winds blowing by way of Communist-ruled Kolkata. Tata Consultancy Providers (TCS) and Cognizant expanded their operations in Kolkata, Infosys started exploring the market, and a bunch of IT and IT-enabled providers companies arrange store throughout the town.
TCS’s journey in Kolkata started in 1976 from a leased workplace in Dalhousie. “We later moved to Salt Lake Sector V and, by early 2000, determined to consolidate our operations. We utilized for a 40-acre plot on the situation that it acquired particular financial zone standing, and the proposal was authorised,” recalled Ajoyendra Mukherjee, who headed the corporate’s Kolkata operations from 1998 to 2008.
“We had been assured that, given the tempo at which the enterprise was rising, the expertise out there in Kolkata, and the standard of execution and supply from the town, this was the place we ought to be increasing,” he mentioned.
TCS employs greater than 54,000 IT professionals throughout services in Kolkata.
As firms responded to the state’s funding pitch, the federal government seemed past Salt Lake to Rajarhat, the place the West Bengal Housing Infrastructure Growth Company had acquired huge tracts of land for residential, industrial, and industrial improvement. The stage was set for West Bengal’s subsequent IT hub. Right now, Salt Lake and New City Rajarhat collectively host round 300,000 IT professionals.
TCS’s journey in Kolkata started in 1976 from a leased workplace in Dalhousie Sq. (above) | Biswarup Ganguly, cc by 3.0/wikimedia commons
“In the event you take a look at the newer aspect of the town, notably New City, it has developed remarkably nicely,” mentioned Harshavardhan Neotia, chairman of the Ambuja Neotia Group.
“You possibly can’t rebuild a metropolis with greater than 300 years of historical past from scratch. Some elements of Kolkata face infrastructure challenges, however that’s additionally a part of its character,” he argued.
The Salt Lake–New City Rajarhat hall is greater than only a know-how hub. Over the previous 20 years, it has advanced right into a self-contained city ecosystem the place tech parks and company headquarters coexist with residential neighbourhoods, industrial centres, colleges, hospitals and leisure hubs.
But, this transformation was not confined to the town’s northeastern fringes; different elements of Kolkata have acquired a definite sheen of their very own.
“We’ve seen a proliferation of retail and leisure choices throughout the town, pushed largely by rising disposable incomes among the many center and upper-middle lessons. That’s been a pure consequence of the financial progress of each the nation and the town,” Neotia identified.
As Kolkata advanced, so did its centres of gravity. Park Avenue ceased to be the town’s sole culinary handle, whereas New Market — the long-lasting red-brick Gothic landmark — yielded its standing because the undisputed mecca for consumers.
Eating places, malls and leisure hubs unfold throughout the town, redrawing how Kolkatans dwell, work, and unwind. In the meantime, the enlargement of the Metro community performed a pivotal position in shaping Kolkata’s city trajectory, driving improvement into its peripheries.
Fashionable retail took root with the opening of the town’s first Pantaloons retailer in 1997. The retail transformation accelerated in 2003 with the launch of its first shopping center, quickly adopted by a wave of premium and luxurious locations.
“After we entered Kolkata with Mainland China in 2000, not a lot was taking place within the metropolis’s eating scene, regardless that it had all the time been a spot for foodies—whether or not for kathi rolls, biryani or the eating places on Park Avenue. However past that, there wasn’t a lot,” recalled Anjan Chatterjee, chairman and managing director of Speciality Eating places.
From then to now, it has been a “kaya palat (full change)”, Chatterjee mentioned. “Individuals have change into way more adventurous, embracing new cuisines and eating codecs. The saying that Calcuttans dwell to eat has by no means rung more true.”
And but, it stays a deeply price-conscious market. “We are able to’t value our dishes on the similar degree as Mumbai or Delhi. Barring the creamy layer, disposable incomes are a lot decrease in comparison with cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Chandigarh or Pune.”
The revenue hole is one measure of how far Kolkata has drifted from its affluent previous. Its decline, nonetheless, was a protracted, uneven course of formed by a long time of compounding setbacks.
Kolkata’s golden age stretched from the late nineteenth into the early twentieth century, when its standing because the capital of British India made it a thriving industrial centre, mentioned political analyst Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury.
Then the benefits started to unravel. “The Second World Warfare weakened the town’s place; Partition disrupted the provision of enter supplies like uncooked jute and introduced an enormous inflow of refugees. Freight equalisation additional eroded Bengal’s industrial edge. By the Sixties and Seventies, labour unrest and militant trade-unionism compounded the decline,” Basu Ray Chaudhury famous.
Restoring Kolkata’s misplaced glory stays an unfinished challenge. But, few dispute that the Metropolis of Pleasure stays amongst India’s most livable metropolises.
Kolkata is an immensely habitable metropolis in comparison with different metros, mentioned Abhirup Sarkar, former professor of economics on the Indian Statistical Institute. “The IT hub has come up in Sector V. There are cafés, hospitals and roads that merely weren’t there earlier than. The facility scenario has improved, and the metro has made commuting a lot simpler. These are seen modifications.”
But Sarkar sees a worrying development, declaring that a number of of the town’s premier academic establishments have misplaced their shine. “The youthful technology is leaving Kolkata. That displays the dearth of satisfactory alternatives, and in the end it impacts the town’s prosperity.”
Many say that Kolkata’s high-rises have change into vertical old-age properties — a reminder of the dearth of satisfactory alternatives within the metropolis.
Based on Mukherjee, the previous senior TCS government, Kolkata missed key alternatives. “The expansion of the IT sector within the metropolis has been primarily pushed by TCS and different firms that contributed tremendously later.”
However over the past 20 years, Hyderabad, Pune and Chennai have overtaken Kolkata. “The town had each alternative to outgrow them,” Mukherjee mentioned.
That sense of falling behind extends past know-how. Sushil Mohta, president of Credai West Bengal, mentioned slower financial reforms have constrained the town’s actual property market.
“Actual property improvement is intrinsically tied to buying energy. About 25-30 per cent of consumers in RERA-registered initiatives are NRIs or non-resident Kolkatans. Capital is flowing into the market, however it is not a mirrored image of the town’s financial momentum.”
Even with industrial districts reminiscent of Rajarhat and Salt Lake taking form, Mohta believes Kolkata nonetheless trails Bengaluru, Pune and the Nationwide Capital Area.
The lengthy highway to funding
West Bengal has had a chequered historical past with funding. Cumulative investments until 2000, when Jyoti Basu relinquished workplace, totalled ₹17,000 crore.
When Bhattacharjee left workplace in Might 2011, West Bengal topped the charts as an funding vacation spot.
Between January and Might 2011, proposed investments in West Bengal stood at almost ₹3 trillion — surpassing Odisha, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, in accordance with knowledge from the Division for Promotion of Trade and Inside Commerce (DPIIT). The Left Entrance’s place as a key ally of the United Progressive Alliance authorities on the Centre (2004–2008) additionally helped safe funding proposals.
Within the final 5 years of the Mamata Banerjee authorities — from 2021 to December 2025 — West Bengal attracted cumulative funding proposals value ₹60,058 crore. In 2024, the state ranked fifth amongst Indian states, with proposed investments of ₹39,306 crore, in accordance with DPIIT figures.
Funding figures don’t inform the entire story. As Harshavardhan Neotia mentioned: “Each metropolis is sort of a individual — it has its strengths and weaknesses. Kolkata has advanced right into a heat, humane and habitable metropolis.”
In some methods, that harks again to the town’s previous.
“Kolkata was as soon as deeply cosmopolitan, absorbing European influences. Chowringhee, Park Avenue and Free Faculty Avenue shaped a part of the colonial hall, and lengthy after the burra sahibs had left, their imprint remained within the metropolis’s structure, meals and life-style. On the similar time, migrants from Odisha and Bihar added layers to the town’s character,” mentioned Basu Ray Chaudhury.
Even because it misplaced its financial edge, Kolkata lived and let dwell.