School dropout rate

Around 87 per cent of schools in West Bengal are under government management. Poor infrastructure and a severe shortage of teachers ail many of these schools. At last count, in 2024-2025, West Bengal had nearly 6,500 single-teacher schools, according to the ministry of education. As a result, says development economist Achin Chakraborty, the state has a high dropout rate of students after Class VIII. This has intensified since Covid-19, according to the 2022 Annual Status of Education Report, which is released by the NGO Pratham based on citizen survey. According to 2024-25 data from the education ministry’s Unified District Information System for Education Plus, dropout rates between Classes IX and XII among boys and girls in Bengal are 23 per cent and 17.8 per cent, respectively. Most of the boys who drop out join the unskilled labour force, many of them migrate to other states. The girls are pushed into early marriage and/or work as domestic help. “This represents a severe loss of human capital and has far-reaching consequences for the state’s economy,” says Chakraborty. Human capital is the economic value of a worker’s skills, knowledge, experience and abilities that drive productivity and innovation. “It is an intangible asset that develops through education and training. Its decay has widespread impact on the economy and society,” he adds. He points out that unlike states such as Uttar Pradesh, where private unaided school enrolment has crossed 50 per cent, Bengal still offers affordable education to a majority of its students.

Women & children’s nutrition

“In West Bengal, rates of anaemia and undernutrition among both mothers and children in rural areas and urban slums are very high,” says Ashok Kumar Sircar, who heads the School of Development at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru. Unicef considers these two indicators a powerful social barometer. Women between 15 and 49 years and children under five are particularly vulnerable across all districts, says Sircar citing the National Family Health Survey-5 (2019-2021). He continues, “Stunted and wasted infants eventually grow into weak adults with lifelong damage to brain development unless malnutrition is addressed at an early age. States such as Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala have addressed this by building a robust Anganwadi system sponsored by the central government.” Established in 1975, this system is meant to combat hunger, malnutrition and offer basic healthcare to mothers and children. Past governments have failed the Anganwadi system, says Sircar.

Senior citizens’ welfare

Of the 100 million who live in West Bengal, senior citizens constitute a sizeable percentage — in the absence of government data, different sources put it at anything between 12 and 14 per cent. This might be less than Kerala’s, but is still a significant number. In 2010, the Left Front government initiated an Old Age Pension scheme for low-income seniors. It had also started some old age homes for low-income seniors. The Trinamool extended the pension to a larger number of seniors and also included them in the state medical insurance scheme. But is that all a senior citizen requires? Nilanjana Maulik, who has been working in the area of age-related disorders for decades, says, “If you compare the situation with states like Kerala which has introduced a comprehensive strategy for the elderly, West Bengal is way behind.” In 2025, Kerala initiated India’s first dedicated senior citizens commission to protect rights, combat abuse and provide legal aid. The state boasts over 1,500 palliative care units and the Vayomithram project offers free medicine, mobile clinics and counselling to those over 65. “Bengal needs to develop a strong support system for the elderly. Many parents live alone with no one to care for them,” says Maulik. “Most of the caregiver agencies are commercial outfits that charge exorbitant fees. How many families can afford them?” Urban planner Nilina Deb Lal draws attention to another set of issues. She says, “First, the pavements have to be fixed. They are broken, uneven, encroached upon. In places, one has to step down onto the road with all its speeding vehicles. What a challenge for a senior citizen!” The other thing, according to her, is the need to create open spaces in the city for senior citizens, for fresh air, for a sense of well-being. She adds, “And when I say creating open spaces, it is not a mindless or easy task; it requires significant creative thinking.”

Shrinking water wealth

West Bengal is perhaps the most water-rich state of India. In the first ever census of water bodies in India conducted by the Centre in 2023, it was among the top five states. But fact is, over the years there has been a steep decline in these resources. “Since the time of the Left Front regime, over 30,000 ponds have been filled up to pave the way for real estate,” says Naba Dutta, who is secretary of the green platform Sabuj Mancha. “Encroachment of rivers and wetlands has also been rampant across the state. Over a dozen rivers are critically polluted,” he adds. Mohit Roy, who is a researcher and an environmental activist, points to the depletion of underground water in cities. He says, “There is the state water investigation directorate under the water resources investigation and development department, which is supposed to monitor this. But the department has to be more discerning when it comes to granting permissions to commercial and industrial bodies. Water metres should be installed. Also, many illegal entities pump ground water in certain pockets and sell it as drinking water. The government should actively conduct surveys, identify these areas, get to the root of the problem. It will turn out that in many of these areas there is no or inadequate supply of potable water so many years after Independence.” According to Dutta, rapid, unregulated groundwater extraction by high-rises in Calcutta and its suburbs has depleted aquifers and turned waters brackish and increased arsenic content.

Muslim welfare beyond the dole

“Muslims in West Bengal have access to very little formal employment and fewer government jobs, and are confined to low-income, manual or informal work. The level of literacy is also low,” says Sabir Ahamed, who is national research co-ordinator of Pratichi Trust, a not-for-profit organisation. And that is how it has been for several decades. Ahamed stresses that even though 90 per cent of Muslims in the state belong to Other Backward Classes, a Calcutta High Court ruling in 2024 struck down the OBC status granted to 75 Muslim communities. “Invalidation of the OBC status has been a setback for the community, closing their door to government jobs,” he says. Dr Saifullah, who teaches at Calcutta’s Aliah University, says, “This status should be reinstated. In the last two years, Muslim youth have not got jobs because of this.” He continues, “The new government that is going to come to power in the state does not have any Muslim leader. I believe Muslims should be included in the cabinet of ministers so they can represent their community’s issues. It is true that the last government had Muslim leaders but they did not speak about our issues; they did not connect with the Muslim masses.” He talks about the madrasas in the state and how they have been languishing. He says, “They are located in remote corners of the state where there is no other institution for students. Those should get government support. The previous government would grant them approval to function on paper. The children did not receive any mid-day meal or government grant; there were no hostel facilities.” Dr Saifullah continues, “The previous government had given some benefits to Muslims. The doles for imams did not do any good to even 0.1 per cent of the Muslim population. Instead, it hurt the self-respect of Muslims. It might be a gesture of compassion on the part of the giver but ultimately everyone else started berating us for it.”

Clean up

Sanghamitra Mukherjee, who is an expert in solid waste management, says a 2016 bylaw of India’s Solid Waste Management Rules talks about how a decentralised mode of waste management should be implemented. It is already in place in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Kerala but it has not been implemented in West Bengal. What it will do is vastly reduce the volume of waste carried to landfills. “The cities will be more clean, there will be fewer waste dumping grounds,” says Mukherjee. A retired bureaucrat, speaking on condition of anonymity, added, “As a common citizen, I have only one demand of the new chief minister. He should keep the goons away. If he can resist this, he will succeed in whatever job he undertakes, be it road construction, drainage or even waste management.”