West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra has written a letter to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on the distress faced by common people, where he has highlighted issues like "chronic unemployment, reverse migration of workers, persistent inflation and collapse of private consumption" among others.
“ I would like to draw your kind attention to the deep distress that common people of the country are facing today. This distress is likely to deepen further over the coming year,” Dr. Mitra said at the very outset in the letter.
The West Bengal Finance Minister, while highlighting the issue of unemployment, said that in August 2021, unemployment rate has shot upto 8.32 % ( as per GOI data) which implies that 3.6 crore people are jobless today. “In other words, 36 million people have no jobs and no earnings. This is one and half times of entire population of Australia,” Dr. Mitra pointed out.
The State’s Finance Minister also said in the letter than unprecedented reverse migration of workers is taking place in India today, from factories to farms. “We are reminded by Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy ( CMIE) that 60% of employment in manufacturing industries is in the unorganized sector. It is this labour force that is compelled to move to agriculture- a dangerous trend that will take years to reverse,” he said.
Dr. Mitra also pointed out that persistent inflation is cutting into the meager consumption expenditure and reducing the real income of people. “ Such persistent inflammatory trend has eaten into the meager consumption expenditure of the common people and has reduced their real income,” he said, adding that “cruel rise of price of petrol , diesel and two consecutive increases in quick succession of cooking gas cylinders” has increased plight of common people.
The West Bengal Finance Minister, who has in the past written several letters to the Union Finance Minister on economic issues concerning the country, also emphasised on the collapse of private consumption and that consumer sentiment in August had significantly fallen as per the RBI and CMIE.
“ It is also evident that private consumption is collapsing, demonstrating the underlying despair of common people. At the same time, corporates of all sizes are holding back from investing in the economy as they do not see demand picking up in near future,” Dr. Mitra said in the letter dated September 9.
Referring to his earlier communication dated August 9, 2021, the W.B. Finance Minister said that he had urged the Union Finance Minister to switch to demand stimulation and provide money in the hands of the people, like what is being done by the West Bengal government.