Despite of doubt over the fortune of the township project at Dankuni, real estate major DLF, in charge of executing the project, is hopeful of going ahead with it. According to DLF officials responsible for the Dankuni project, “The company remains committed to the project. The government has not briefed DLF about any of its strategy about the township, after the minister’s comment.”

However, any decision to hang up the project would not only be a huge loss to DLF, but to West Bengal as well, because the project was assigned to the company through a global tender, after assessing its commercial viability, said the official.

The process of land purchase at Dankuni had been postponed for now as the elected representatives on the land procurement committee, after the panchayat elections, were all members of the opposition Trinamul Congress and opposed to the project.

Besides, they were yet to assume their office, according to sources at the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA).

KMDA sources claimed it had also not received any intimation from the state urban development department in this matter, though it was under the departmental minister A. Bhattacharya who announced the cancellation of the land purchase proposal for the project.

In this situation, DLF did not expect to begin work at the proposed township, which is now running 6 months behind schedule, within 2008, confirmed company officials.

While nervousness has been simmering at the location of township for quite some time, the controversy surfaced recently, when the state urban development minister A. Bhattacharya said the government would not do any purchase of land, thereby stalling project in Dankuni.
He said land purchase was against the will of the opposition parties and landowners in the area.

The thirty three thousand crore rupees township project, spread over four thousand eight hundred forty acres of land, was one of the biggest public private partnership projects in the country.

Of the total project area, seven hundred seventy one acres had been allotted for industry.

Textile, food processing and engineering industries were to come up the earmarked industrial area.

Around one thousand eight hundred seventy two acres had been reserved for housing projects.