The defence manufacturing corridor in West Bengal received a fresh boost on Sunday with Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari virtually placing the new stone to the foundation of five Brownfield (BF) expansion projects worth nearly Rs 3,500 crore, which have been approved by the Union government. The ceremony at GRSE Bhavan, Kolkata, saw the participation of Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers and Yantra India Limited, which is a state-owned enterprise, and was dubbed one of the most important industrial pledges during the tenure of the new government at Nabanna. Adhikari's message was direct and was repeated with impact: Bengal is here for the land, labour and legacy to become a premier investment address and that's not something to wait for.

The politics of the announcement are as important as the numbers. Three of the five projects are under the Kolkata-based ship builder GRSE which has emerged as one of the most active shipyards in the naval orderbook of the country. The new building to be built at Raichak, in the South 24 Parganas, is the main attraction, accounting for over Rs 2,500 crore of the total expenditure. When in use it will be able to construct warships up to 200 metres long and ships of 60,000 deadweight tonnages, which in turn would have them among the more capable yards on the eastern seaboard. GRSE will also be increasing its efforts at Shalimar (Howrah) with an eye on the smaller vessel construction and repair segment, and its older facility at Kidderpore. The other two projects are with the Metal and Steel Factory, Ishapore, of Yantra India Limited where the interface is expected to make the metallurgical grid more robust, bolstering naval and ordnance production around the region.

This is no coincidence. India's shipbuilding industry has lagged behind the shipbuilding powerhouses of East Asian countries for years, now is the time of a highly ambitious policy push. Although it has decades of maritime tradition, the country has very little shipbuilding tonnage left, just one percent of the world's. New Delhi has responded with the Maritime India Vision 2047, Maritime Development Fund of Rs 25,000 crore, and a soon to be published Shipbuilding Financial Assistance Policy that will mobilise nearly two billion dollars into the sector. Now, industry estimates peg the worth of the shipbuilding projects already implemented or approved via the country at around Rs 2.3 trillion which would have appeared unfeasible even five years ago. All this is in addition to the defence ministry's own goal of achieving an annual defence production of Rs 3 lakh crore and exports of Rs 50,000 crore by 2028-29, up from the current estimated level of Rs 1.5 lakh crore. The Rs 3,500 crore share of Bengal is a small amount in those numbers, but it is coming to a state that has been witnessing the capital migrate to Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh for years.

Adhikari's words certainly had a subtext of that contrast. He has pointed out that the industrial base of the State had been hollowed out by a politics of constant friction with the Centre under the Left Front rule over the past three decades and the Trinamool rule for the past 15 years. He highlighted specific instances of the new approach, including his government's current transfer to the Border Security Force of almost 90 per cent of the land the BSF has requested for fencing along the border of Bengal, which it had been waiting for since at least 2016. But he portrayed this not as a political concession, but as a moral duty of any government, and linked it to the same spirit of reciprocity that is ushering in the industrial investment breakthrough. The implementation of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita was mentioned in the same breath as the delayed Census work and in the broader narrative, governance friction was the real problem preventing Bengal from moving forward, rather than geography or workers' capabilities.

There is a more economic argument than the politics that rests below them; one to be taken seriously on its own merits. The manufacturing of defence products and shipbuilding products have unusually long supply chains, and in the case of GRSE, there are some interesting links to MSMEs in the areas of castings, fabrication, electricals, and outfitting work, which can lead to several times as many indirect jobs. The problem of the lack of assets in West Bengal has not been a major issue in the first place. It boasts of huge port facilities, an established engineering community that has been developed over the years around the old ship building base of Kolkata and close proximity to steel and metallurgical supply from the east. It has been missing the steady stream of anchor investment ready to take a chance on this foundation, and public-sector shipbuilders who report directly to the central government are just the kind of investor who has not been daunted by state-Centre tensions that have scared private investors in the past. Rajnath Singh's own remarks at the ceremony, which highlighted Aatmanirbharta and the Modi government's initiatives of Make in India and Make for the World, strengthened this assertion that the project is not just about regional development, but an integral part of the national strategy to minimise dependence on foreign sources for warship-building.

Whether or not Bengal will truly become the place Adhikari is describing it as, the best place to invest, will depend on the action and not the words. The existence of land and basic infrastructure is a real benefit in delivering brownfields as opposed to greenfields. But India's shipbuilding industry is still 15-20 percent more expensive than Chinese or South Korean yards on similar orders and building a single Bhumi Pujan into a robust industrial cluster will take a lot more than a single ceremony, and order flow, clearances and consistency between Kolkata and Delhi will have to keep flowing, and flowing, and flowing. So far, the bottom line of the partnership was clear on both sides: The money has been spent; the shovels are in the ground; the state can be asked to show it can turn goodwill into output.