People who are unemployed have a reason to cheer as the state government of West Bengal has announced bank loans of Rs 50,000 for the unemployed youth.

The state government announced the scheme on February 24th with a view to help the unemployed youth who want to start their own ventures. Labour Minister Mrinal Banerjee discussed the loan granting procedure in a meeting with the representatives of RBI, Bank of Baroda, SBI and other banks.

Addressing a press conference, Mr Banerjee said, "We have worked out a new scheme, Udiyaman Swanirbhar Karmasanstan Prakalpa 2008, for unemployed youth who set up small business ventures in the state. We are looking at businesses where the minimum investment will be Rs 50,000 and maximum investment Rs 5 lakh. The state government will provide a 25% subsidy for these business ventures."

He stated that, "Youths, between 18 and 45 years of age, would be given Rs 50,000 each. Of this, the state government will pay Rs 12,000." The minister said that if ten individuals joined together to prepared a scheme, then they would get loan of Rs 5 lakh and the government would pay Rs 1.25 lakh of that amount.

This scheme will be available to those people who have registered with employment exchanges and have not received any job through the exchange in the past one year. "We plan to launch the scheme in the current financial year. A screening committee will be set up with representatives from the labour department, district administration, banks and chambers who will scrutinise the business proposals."

Further the state government is in discussions with the some public sector banks to lend loans for the purpose. "We have spoken to eight nationalised banks today on this issue. We plan to meet these banks next month again," said the labour minister.