First-of-its-kind job fair held amid gala fanfare

Kolkata: With emergence of the recent report about the country's unemployment rate being at a 45-year-high at 6.1 percent in 2017-18, the main attraction of the Milan Utsav this year became the mega job fair, organised by the state government. The event began with much fervour and colour-tinted enthusiasm at Park Circus Maidan on February 1 and will continue till February 4.

Based on the central theme of 'celebrating unity in diversity', the inaugural day of the festival witnessed a confluence of culture, cuisine and communities.

With over 200 stalls dedicated to displaying the various cuisines of different communities

of Bengal, it also became an

amalgamation of handicrafts, clothing, and food items of various districts ranging from Birbhum to Murshidabad. But the crux of it all became the first-of-its-kind mega job fair for the youth of Bengal.

The inaugural ceremony of the Mela, attended by minister of Panchayats and Rural development Subrata Mukherjee and Mayor Firhad Hakim among others, embraced the initiative of the government and dubbed it as the 'Maha Milan Mela' of this year.

Among the hundred stalls, at least 36 had been allotted to different educational institutions such as RICE, Aliah University and Urdu Academy, among others, which have been providing all-day long career counselling sessions for the students.

The state government had also opened a job portal, a month prior to the onset of the festival, where at least 9,000 people had registered. At least 52 corporate houses and MNCs will be arriving on the second day of the festival where they aim to hire at least 300 of these people.

Emphasising on the current job crisis in the country,

Hakim said: "Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised at least 2 crore jobs but the highest level of unemployment persists in the country. So in such a situation, the initiative of

having career counselling stalls this year at the Milan Mela is a boon for the unemployed youths of Bengal".

Speaking at the event, Subrata Mukherjee said Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has been awaiting a day when she would not need a state department in the government for the minorities of Bengal.