Thaindian News

New Delhi, May 18 (IANS) Having won a seat in the West Bengal assembly in the recently concluded state elections, FICCI’s secretary general for 15 years Amit Mitra has resigned from the industry lobby.

Mitra, who was with FICCI in various roles since 1994, tendered his resignation on May 16 which the organisation accepted Wednesday.

“Dr. Amit Mitra has resigned from the organization in preparing a larger role at the state level,” said a statement from FICCI.

Mitra, who contested from Khardah in North 24 Parganas district as a Trinamool Congress candidate, baged 83,608 votes beating state Finance Minister Asim Dasgupta by an emphatic margin of 26,154 votes.

A noted economist, Mitra, 63, is being touted as the next finance minister of the state. A PhD from Duke University in the US, he has been assisting Railway Minister — and Trinamool Congress chief — Mamata Banerjee as chairman of an expert committee in drawing up business plans for the railways since she got the portfolio in 2009.

FICCI said that Mitra had almost single-handedly rebuilt the organisation from a state where it was “struggling to sustain its historical legacy built since its founding in 1927″.

“FICCI’s revenues, less than a true indicator of its rising influence on policy making, increased from about Rs.3 crore per annum to their current level of about Rs.110 crore during his tenure,” it added.

Mitra has been credited with building a strong in-house talent pool that has given it the ability to contribute to policy formulation and ensuring that FICCI’s infrastructure capacities, located in the very heart of Delhi, were expanded and refurbished to keep up with its evolving needs.