This year’s Durga Puja celebrations generated business of over Rs 80,000 crore and provided employment opportunities to close to 3 lakh people, chief minister Mamata Banerjee said on Wednesday.
“Given the hype around the Puja this time, we will do it even better next time. The British Council has said the Puja this year generated business worth approximately Rs 72,000 crore. But I believe the figure will cross Rs 80,000-85,000 crore,” Mamata said.
“The amount has reached the people. Employment opportunities for around 3 lakh people were created.”
There were around 43,000 officially recognised Durga pujas in Bengal this year. Around 3,000 of them were in Kolkata.
Unesco’s inscription of Durga Puja on the representative list of intangible cultural heritage of humanity and the absence of the Covid fear made the festival a grand affair after several years, some of the organisers said.
Most organisers spent almost 20 per cent more this time, conversations with multiple organisers suggested.
“The overall feel was very different this time. There were more revellers out on the streets.... Art enthusiasts from Karnataka and Kerala visited the puja at Hatibagan Sarbojonin,” said Saswata Basu, general secretary of the Forum for Durgostav.
“The corporate presence in the form of banners, hoardings and gates was markedly better than in previous years. The average spending by the organisers shot up by 20-30 per cent.”
The state government had allocated a cash incentive of Rs 70,000 for each registered Durga puja this year, up by Rs 10,000 from last year. Critics have accused the government of misusing over Rs 300 crore of taxpayers’ money.
On Wednesday, Mamata said: “I had offered an amount to some clubs. Last time you all had moved court (referring to the critics). I gave the money because the clubs are engaged in social activities.
“I will give more if there’s a chance. If one can bring home Rs 72,000 crore by spending Rs 300 crore, it should be an economic model.”
In 2019, the British Council had carried out research, which was led by Queen Mary University of London and supported by IIT Kharagpur.
The report, published in 2021, said the “economic worth of the creative industries around Durga Puja in West Bengal is Rs 32,377 crore, which is the size of the economy of many smaller countries across the world.”
Restaurants across the city made Rs 1,100 crore in six days till Dashami, more than 20 per cent of the earnings during the same period last year, according to the Hotel and Restaurant Association of Eastern India.
