Biswa Bangla wholly-owned Bengal government company: Official

Kolkata, Nov 11 : Refuting BJP's new entrant Mukul Roy for his comments relating to Biswa Bangla Marketing Corporation, a senior West Bengal government official on Saturday said the company is wholly owned by the state government.

"The Biswa Bangla Marketing Corporation was incorporated by December 31, 2014 and its share holders are three government officials. It is not a private entity. Its paid up capital was paid by the state MSME (Micro, Small, medium Enterprise) and Textiles Department," Additional Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha told reporters at the state Secretariat Nabanna.AA

The department has promoted Biswa Bangla Marketing Corporation to improve the quality of life of Bengal's handloom weavers, crafts-persons and custodians of heritage, according to its website.

Roy, who was one of the founding members of Trinamool Congress, had said on Friday that the party was now more of a private limited company than a political outfit and alleged that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's "Biswa Bangla" (the name by which she brands the state) was nothing by a company owned by her nephew Abhishek Banerjee.

Elaborating further, Sinha said: "Biswa Bangla logo has been created by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. In 2014, she transferred the logo to us with an agreement. She is creator of the logo and we are the user.

"After completing the agreement, we went for registering it to the trademark registry. They had said one or two applications were submitted against the same for the registration."

However, the previous applications were withdrawn by the applicants and the Registrar of Trademark had accepted it.

Sinha also said any department of the state government can use the logo for their programme.

Home Secretary Atri Bhattacharya, who had refuted Roy, said the Biswa Bangla brand has been promoting as the brand of the people of Bengal.

Bhattacharyya also reiterated: "It is a government company and rights to the logo have been transferred to the company. On a private capacity, Chief Minister created the logo and handed it over."

Reacting to this, Roy on Saturday said he has been waiting for a legal battle.

"I heard of that the legal notice would be served to me. Let the notice come, we will face the legal battle," he said.