The new West Bengal government is barely a couple of months old and came into position after replacing the Communist Party of India government. We are not going to get into a comparison between the communist government and the current government. We’ll to take a look at how the present West Bengal government increased employment opportunities in the state.
There is a lot of land in West Bengal that has been lying unused for quite some time. These vast stretches of land are mostly in the rural areas and are not fertile enough for agriculture. These land stretches are under private ownership and in most cases these are owned by farmers.
When the present government took charge, it conducted a statewide survey to find out the needs of the farmers who have always complained that the government isn’t interested in the welfare and development of their community. After conducting the surveys, the Congress government found out a couple of shocking facts. Quite contrary to popular belief, the farmers were having a hard time to make ends meet because most of the land that they owned wasn’t suitable for farming purposes. To make matters worse, the prices of fertilizers were increasing day by day, making it difficult for the farmers to continue with their profession.
A lot of farmers actually wanted the government to create employment opportunities for some of their family members so they could sustain their families better. This feedback actually helped the state government to form a strategy that would be beneficial for the entire state.
The government went on to strike a deal with foreign car manufacturing companies. These companies usually require vast stretches of land for setting up their factories; the government offered lands to these companies for rock-bottom prices, in return for which they were supposed to provide employment to at least two family members from every farmer family that was willing to sell the land they owned. This created a win-win situation for both parties. The company not only got the land but also the required manpower for its factories and the farmers got some money against their land along with two people from each family employed with the company.
It goes without mention that these factories required a lot of people for different posts and the number of people from the farmers’ families was just not enough to fill up all vacancies – this created employment opportunities for other people also. Today, West Bengal has a very high employment rate and the whole credit goes to the new Congress government.
The recent example of this project is the setting up of a Volkswagen factory in the Singur village in West Bengal. The construction work is still in progress, but the company has already given job offer letters to the family members of the farmers who sold their land to the government.
The government has also started a mass land acquisition project to make sure that all investors interested in setting up business units in the state can be accommodated. The companies who’ve already responded to the government’s invitation include Phillips, Siemens, Jaguar and DLF. Very soon West Bengal would turn into the hotspot of both private and government jobs and is even expected to give Delhi a tough competition in this regard.