Bengal's unemployment rate drops by about 50% in Nov

Kolkata: With the Mamata Banerjee government setting another milestone in terms of creating jobs, Bengal has witnessed a drop of almost 50 per cent in unemployment in November this year compared to corresponding period in 2020.

This comes to light with a report of CMIE revealing that the unemployment rate in Bengal has dropped to 6.7 per cent in the month of November. The same in the month of November last year was 11.2 per cent.

The success of Bengal comes when the unemployment rate of the country stands at 7.1 per cent, which includes 8.5 per cent in urban and 6.5 per cent in rural parts of the country in the month of November.

It is interesting to note when Bengal's unemployment rate has gone down in this year's November compared to that of in the same month last year, it is just opposite for the national average for the same. The national average in November 2020 was 6.5 per cent and this year it has gone up to 7.1 per cent, the report shows.

Bengal is also in a much better position in creating job opportunities with less unemployment in November rate than BJP-run states including Tripura, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Bihar. The unemployment rate in Bengal is also less than other states including Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Kerala and Rajasthan. The study shows that BJP-run Haryana has the highest unemployment rate of 29.3 per cent in the country in the month of November.

According to a senior state government officer, it is the robust economic policy that helped in reducing the unemployment rate in the state.

The rural economy has improved with the social schemes. "It would further go down with the Chief Minister's aim to make the country number one in industry and commerce. Bengal is number one in MSME and it would create more job opportunities as the size of land required to set up an industrial park has been reduced to 5 acres," the officer said.

The report also shows that the unemployment rate in Bengal had gone up to 19.3 per cent and 22.1 per cent in the months of May and June.

According to the expert it had happened due to the Covid situation for which restrictions were imposed.

"But the Mamata Banerjee government tackled the issue giving importance to both life and livelihood that helped to bring the unemployment gradually down. It was 7.4 per cent in two consecutive months of July and August," the officer said.

It needs a mention that Bengal had recorded only 6.5 per cent unemployment rate compared to that of the country's average at 11 per cent in June 2020.

In this connection, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had then tweeted: "We have implemented a robust economic strategy to tackle COVID-19 and the devastation caused by Amphan. Proof lies in West Bengal's unemployment rate for the month of June 2020 which stands at 6.5 per cent, far better than that of India at 11%, Uttar Pradesh at 9.6 per cent and Haryana at 33.6 per cent, as per CMIE."