West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday highlighted the state’s leadership in the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector, describing it as a "landmark achievement" in employment generation and women empowerment. She emphasised the need to move beyond narratives of "negativity" and focus on creativity and self-reliance. At the grand inauguration ceremony of 'Shilpanna', the centre for leather and cottage industries in Alipore here, Banerjee said the facility would promote traditional handicrafts, leather goods, and handloom products, while providing a sustainable platform for women-led self-help groups (SHGs), artisans. "Bengal is number one in the country in MSME. More than 90 lakh units are operational here, employing over 1.3 crore people. We have created over 660 MSME clusters and facilitated loans of more than Rs 9.5 lakh-crore," Banerjee said. She added that schemes like the Bhabishyat credit card were empowering the youth, offering loans of Rs 50,000 to help them start small businesses. "The total disbursal under the scheme will soon cross Rs 2 lakh crore," the chief minister said.
The newly opened Shilpanna complex houses 45 air-conditioned stalls and three exclusive outlets. Banerjee noted that Bengal had become a national leader in saree production and handloom-based work. "Earlier we used to procure cloth from outside. Now, we produce 5 crore metres of cloth within Bengal to make school uniforms. This has generated several crore workdays," she said. She said 21 Banglar Sari outlets had been set up and 23 shopping malls were in the works, each with floors reserved for SHGs. Banerjee said, "A major problem today is the dominance of negative narratives. Nobody talks about creativity or positivity anymore. We must celebrate what we're doing right."