Govt mulls more export cells in districts to educate entrepreneurs
Kolkata: The Bengal government is keen on setting up more export cells in the districts, to disseminate information among young entrepreneurs from the far flung areas on how to open start-up businesses and what procedure one has to follow to initiate his/her business.
The state Industry and Commerce department has already initiated a process to set up an industry centre at all the districts, so that interested people get to know about the schemes of various projects at these centres. The export cells will be set up at the district industry centres.
Officers from departments like Industry and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) would be there at the export cells, who will give answer to the queries of the people who are interested in start-ups.
The small and medium scale entrepreneurs will be briefed about the government schemes and young entrepreneurs will be taught how to do documentation. Industry and MSME officers in the districts will be given training in this regard from time to time. According to a senior state government official, an elaborate plan is being chalked out to set up more export centres in the districts, in order to make the entire process smoother. The officers who will be posted in these centres will have special training in this sector.
The officers at the export cells will also examine the problems the industry people are facing. They will meet interested people from time to time and inform them how to avail various benefits offered by the state government. West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) and the MSME department will take care of the export cells.
It may be mentioned here that industry has been a thrust area for the Mamata Banerjee government. The state government has been able to achieve export growth rate of 11.17 percent last year. There has been an export of 8.23 billion US Dollars from Bengal in the financial year 2016-17, which has gone up to 9.15 billion US Dollars in 2017-18.
Products worth around Rs 62,000 crore have been exported from the state in 2017-18. The Industry and Commerce department has been working to export various products to new countries, so that the overall export goes up.
One of the main purposes of the move is to increase the export growth rate. It can also be mentioned that the Bengal government has already set a target of doubling the export growth rate within 2021. The Commerce and Enterprise minister Amit Mitra, during a programme a few months ago, reiterated the vision of his department.
