The first line of credit amounting to Rs. 5 crores will be available to the Calcutta unit of Metal Box company lying closed for about eleven years. The interest will be lower than the one charged by the banks. The loans will be disbursed through the West Bengal Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation, according to the State’s Industrial Reconstruction Minister, Mrinal Banerjee.

According to the terms of the agreement, the loan amount will be available to the company from three to six months after resumption of operations by the company. A representative of the State Government will have to be taken on the board of the company. After reopening of the company, a monitoring committee including representatives of the State Government and of the financial institutions will be set up to monitor the progress of the revived sick unit. As a general rule, the State government will sanction loan to a sick and closed unit for its revival, only after the concerned trade union and the financial institution approve the revival scheme.

In the heydays, Metal Box was a blue-chip company in the packaging field. After the lapse of years the management of the company took the initiative in reopening four of the nine units spread over the country, of which one is in Calcutta. A petition was filed in the Delhi High Court and on the directive of the court, the ICICI prepared a Rs. 107 crores revival scheme. Of this Rs. 43 crores would be available from the sale of land of the Mumbai factory, the promoter will provide Rs. 30 crores and disposal of the unused machinery will fetch Rs. 15 crores. To this is added the State Government's contribution of Rs. 5 crores as loan. In addition, the company will mobilise resources initially too. The company will be offered the facility of deferred payment of sales tax.

The Calcutta unit of Metal Box is one among the units to be revived. In the packaging unit of Calcutta 1,000 workers are employed. In addition there are 810 more workers in three other branches of the Calcutta unit. In the approved revival scheme there is a provision for voluntary retirement and payment of arrears to the workers.

With the industrial climate turning positive in West Bengal more and more promoters are coming forward to reopen sick and closed industries. Meanwhile, with land reforms based agricultural development in West Bengal, the demand for industrial goods has been created within the State and the demand in increasing by about 10% per year. Even though an industrial recession has gripped the world, the industrial investment scenario in West Bengal is looking up with foreign companies, indigenous investors and NRIs showing increasing interest to invest in West Bengal.