Document • Industrial Policy for West Bengal 1 THE major goals of the Left Front Government over the long run should be: (a) reversal of the trend towards industrial stagnation, (b) arresting the growth of unemployment and providing for increased employment in the industrial as well as agricultural sectors; (c) encouraging the growth of small and cottage industries, (d) lessening the stranglehold of the-monopoly houses and multinational firms on the economy of the State, (e) encouragement of indigenous technology and industrial self-reliance, (f) the gradual expansion of the public sector, and (g) increasing the control bf the actual producers,4 that Is, the workers, over the industrial sector. 2 The different goals mentioned above arc intercmmected. The reversal of the tendency towards industrial stagnation and the active expansion of industrial employment require that the State Government should not think in terms of a mere revival of old industries substantially under old forms of management and control. If the stress in policy is on revival, the monopoly housed and the multinational companies will be helped in further increasing their gfip over the economy of this State. This would be wholly against the principles upheld by the Left Front, which is pressing the Centre to curb the activities of the monopoly industrial hcwes and the multinational corporations. The Front ^ould like this policy to be accepted as much at tA^tiaitNari k^el as m the case of* individual States. In the yeais since Ihdepe^dence, the multinational companies and big houses have utilized the profits realized from WeM Bengal's industries either for supporting the lavish style of living of the owners and top exccutiws of fof seding^p industries elsewhere, or for remitting funds abroad. Only a part was utilized to set up new units (the stimulus for which too was often provided by public sector investment). These new units were generally highly capital- inteirsive; the share of wages and the generation of employment in such units were relatively low even by the standards of the traditional hirge-scale industries of India. The multinational companies and monopoly houses did little