Bengal: Mamata Banerjee's schemes ushering in new era for farmers and girl child

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's coveted project, Kanyashree Prakalpa, aimed at the empowerment of the girl child, has drastically reduced the number of child marriages and the dropout rates of girls in schools. The project not only offers scholarships to girls, but also helps them start their own businesses.

According to a baseline survey conducted in June 2015, the number of girls dropping out of school reduced by 56 per cent and the number of child marriage cases also dropped by 33 per cent.

Credit is also due to Mamata for launching her government's most popular scheme, Khadya Sathi, through which an estimated 70 million people have got access to rice at Rs 2 per kg. Plus, under the Sabuj Sathi scheme, some 2.5 million cycles have been distributed to students in rural Bengal so that they can attend school. That apart, opening up 109 fair price medicine shops and making Nadia district free of open defecation are her other top achievements.

Rejecting the opposition's argument that Bengal was lagging behind in the agricultural sector, state Agriculture Minister Purnendu Bose said, "We have received the Krishi Karman award in a row for the past five years. Would that have been possible if we were lagging behind?"

For years, Bengal has remained dependent on the Centre for meeting its demands for food, as food production remained stagnant and the Green Revolution had bypassed the state. But it is now one of the few Indian states with surplus food production. Bengal is the largest producer of rice in India, with an annual output of around 16.1 million tonnes during 2015-16, and the second-largest producer of potatoes in the country, with an average annual output of 11 million tonnes during the same period.

Mamata, through industry bodies such as CII and FICCI, has also been pitching for investment in the agricultural sector. CII and the state government organised Krishi Unnyan Mela in Burdwan, popularly known as the rice bowl of the state, to introduce concepts of farm mechanisation, which can create a market of farm equipment for industries. "We are also looking at possibilities of IT application in agriculture and thus industry linkage is a must," Basu said.