Ghatak inaugurates Bengal's first Model Career Centre

Kolkata: State Labour minister Moloy Ghatak inaugurated the Model Career Centre (MCC), the first of its kind in the state, at Purta Bhavan in Salt Lake on Monday.

"The main job of the MCCs will be to keep in constant touch with the people who have registered their names in the employment bank of the state government and counsel them in pursuing the right career path, which will make them employable," Ghatak said.

The state will soon open two more MCCs at Asansol and Siliguri in North Bengal in April. "We have plans to open such MCCs in all the districts. The employment exchanges across the state have been directed to inform us whether there is available space for setting up MCCs," a senior official of the Labour department said. There are 66 such employment exchanges in Bengal.

Elaborating on the role of the MCC, the official said that the job of the centre will be to find out the interest area of a particular person and accordingly guide them about several vocational and skill development trainings that are on offer by the government.

"The people are often confused about the career that they should pursue to become employable. The centre will cater to this issue as all government schemes, courses and skill development trainings that are offered by the various departments, will be available under a single umbrella at the MCCs," the official said.

Apart from Ghatak, Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation Mayor Sabyasachi Dutta and Bidhannagar MLA Sujit Bose were also present at the programme.

It may be mentioned that generation of jobs has been the focus of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the state has been able to generate 8.92 lakh jobs, both in the government and private sectors since 2011 after the Trinamool Congress government took over, ending 34 years of Left Front rule in Bengal. Bengal has become the best performing state, both in terms of allotting jobs and utilising funds under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).

According to statistics recently provided in Rajya Sabha by the minister of state for Rural Development Ram Kripal Yadav, Bengal has generated more than 28.21 crore work days under the scheme so far in 2017-18 and spent more than Rs 7,335.31 crore.