Despite repeated requests, the central government is yet to lift the moratorium on the expansion of industrial projects, or new projects, in important factory clusters in West Bengal, the state's Minister-in-Charge at the Environment Department said today. “In spite of my personal visit ... and several applications to them, they are yet to lift the moratorium in Haldia and Asansol so that our industrial development can go on,” Mr Sudarshan Ghosh Dastidar said at a session on industrial pollution and mitigation at the Indian Chamber of Commerce. Nobody was available today at the Central Pollution Control Board to comment on the issue. The moratorium was first imposed back in January 2010, after a joint study by the Central Pollution Control Board and Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi found high levels of pollution. Haldia's score on the Comprehensive Environmental Pollution Index (CEPI), which takes into account air and water quality and ecological damage, was 75.43. Asansol's mark was 70.2. As the figures were greater than 70, they were given the label of “critically polluted”. Mr Ghosh Dastidar said those figures have now dropped to below 70, so the ban should be lifted. While Assocham General Secretary D S Rawat said he agreed that the ban had “surely slowed down” industrial development, he said there are a number of other priority fronts which the state government needs to move forward on to promote industrial growth. “Land acquisition is the biggest concern,” he said, “the government will have to be making it's policy absolutely clear.” He also said that the West Bengal government needs “to go all over the country to market their state, like other states do” in order to get big sums of investment.