mumbai west bengal finance minister amit mitra witnessed early success during his visit to countrys commercial capital to attract investments into the eastern state with two gems jewellery industry trade bodies pledging to set up large centres to facilitate their trade the west bengal minister also had wide ranging discussions with top industry leaders like anand mahindra adi godrej and kishore biyani for expanding their business in the state he also received commitments from indias leading textile manufacturers for their support to expand their operations in and around kolkataall india gems jewellery trade federation gjf the apex industry body for the 84billion sector is setting up a 25000square feet training centre for people in this segment of the economy gjfs demand for space near kolkata was approved during the meeting itself mitra said the state also agreed to demands from the central governmentsponsored gems jeweller export promotion council gjepc and leading jeweller gitanjali gems to set up design and rd centres around the city he saidmahindras have some big plans for the state and we are trying to see how to take that forward mitra said without elaborating on the specifics of the plans by the 19billion conglomerate currently tech mahindra the it arm of the group has a large development centre in the city while the groups automotive arm has an auto spare warehouse near kharagpurmitra who also handles the industries and commerce portfolios was in the city to speak to leaders from the gems jewellery and textiles sectors are labourintensive west bengal has some advantage in this sector due to the presence of a large number of skilled personnel across india about 80 of the skilled workers in the gems jewellery and diamond gjd industry are from bengal a top leader from the industry had told toi recently rather than the people from the state migrating to other parts of india for employment in the gjd industry the state is now taking steps to set up these industries within its boundaries to prevent migration for jobs generate employment bring in revenues and boost other related industriesmitra said the response from the leaders of these two industries to bengals proposals on the table was good during our meeting with leaders from the gjd industry it was found that the aggregate value of turnover that these industrialists managed was in excess of rs 3 lakh crore and the corresponding number for our meeting with the leaders from the textile industry was rs 25 lakh crore he saidfor the textiles industry the state and industry leaders have zeroed in on five subsectors in which bengal is either a leader in the country or a top producer and those segments will be boosted through government help these sectors are hosiery inner ware linen workwares technical textiles and textiles machinery of these the textiles machinery once developed could also result into substantial import substitution and thus savings of foreign exchange for the country india imports almost all the