Govt rejigs secretaries of few departments

Rajiva Sinha will be the new Commerce and Industry department secretary. He will take the chair of Krishna Gupta.

Gupta, the former Commerce and Industry department secretary will become the new Information Technology and Electronics department.

Gupta will take the chair of Talleen Kumar. Kumar, the former Information Technology and Electronics department secretary will become the secretary of Consumer Affairs department.

However, Kumar was given the additional charge of Consumer Affairs department recently after the retirement of Reena Venkataraman, the former Consumer Affairs department secretary.

Sinha, the former MSME secretary, who has now become the industry secretary, has a great track record. The Mamata Banerjee government is promoting the Micro, Medium and Small Enterprise (MSME) in a major way. Rajiva Sinha took a leading role to uplift the department and achieved many milestones.

One of his remarkable achievements was turning Tantuja and Manjusha to profit making entities. Tantuja and Manjusha have become a great success story for Bengal. Both these entities, once ailing from financial crisis, are now making record operational profits.

The products of these entities are now sold in Amazon and Flipkart. Tantuja, under West Bengal State Handloom Weavers Cooperative Society made a record operational profit in 2015-16 at Rs 3.5 crore against a turnover of Rs 123.19 crore. The profit margin was Rs 2.05 crore in 2014-15 against the turnover of Rs 106.67 crore.

On the other hand, Manjusa under West Bengal Handicrafts Development Corporation has achieved its first operational profit of Rs 3.15 crore since 1976.

Since these are now profit-making bodies, they are planning to go self-sufficient in the next two years. These two institutions would not take share capital worth Rs 5 crore provided by state government.

"The state government once established these two entities for making a sharp promotion of weaving and craftsmanship – Bengal's unique culture. But the militant trade unionism, poor work culture were to be blamed for the loss – a burden to the government. Sinha's achievement was to drag those institutions to the path of profit," said a source. Krishna Gupta, the new IT secretary will try to resolve some unsolved issues regarding bringing investment in the state.