Desperately searching for some issue to turn into a poll plank, the Left Front has grabbed the 2011 Census report with both hands as a godsend. Last week when the census report 2011 of Bengal was officially released, the CPI(M) satraps immediately started poring over its details.
To their delight they found that the state had fared much better than others in the past 10 years. The CPI(M) state secretary and Left Front chairman Biman Bose said that the census report was a befitting reply to the detractors of the Left Front who persistently parroted the line that the state lagged behind other states in every field. “In population control, literacy and several important fields Bengal has done better than other states and in fact, our performance is even better than the national average,” he added.
Expressing concerns over the growing disparity between the male and female population ratio, Mr Bose said that while the national average showed that there were 940 females for every 1000 males in the country, in West Bengal the ratio was 847 females for every 1000 males.
“Similarly even the literacy percentage of India in 2011 is 74.04 per cent while the literacy rate in our state is 77.08 percent which is over three percent more than the national average,” he added.
Bengal has fared better than the national average even in male and female literacy rates. “82.14 males are literate in India while the ratio is Bengal is 82.67 per cent. Female literacy in Bengal is much higher than the national average: 71.16 females are literate in the state while the all India figure is only 65.46 per cent,” he added.
Mr Bose also did not forget to highlight the significant drop in population growth in the state. “Since 2001 the population of India has increased by 17.68 per cent but in West Bengal, it has increased by 13.93 per cent only,” he said.