New Delhi: Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, West Bengal has recorded a positive GDP in 2020-21, said Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant.
Kant said West Bengal is the only one of the two states in the over-10 lakh crore club to record positive growth in the pandemic year 2020-21. The other state to record positive growth is Tamil Nadu.
Kant, meanwhile, seconded Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s claim that demand-led financial schemes had been a booster for the GDP of West Bengal.
Kant also said that while the entire country’s GDP had done bad, West Bengal along with Tripura, Bihar and Sikkim has done good.
The Niti Aayog CEO also claimed that investment in these areas is yielding benefits.
Notably, West Bengal had the highest GSDP among all eastern states at rupees 13.7 lakh crore and Bihar has 7.6 lakh crore rupees.
It can be recalled that West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra while reading out his budget speech had claimed that West Bengal’s GDP had gone up 2.9 times from 2010-11 to 2019-20.
Mitra had also claimed that during Trinamool Congress rule fiscal deficit too had fallen from 4.2% to 2.9%
