Govt without ‘human face’ can't work: Mamata at G20 meet

A government without a ‘human face’ cannot work, and despite being a diverse country, India’s strength is drawn from its unity, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee told the guests and delegates at the first ‘global partnership for financial inclusion’ meeting of the G20, which began in Kolkata on Monday.

Banerjee told the gathering that without the development of people the world cannot be developed. “Our government, whatever we are doing, we are doing in our human face (with a human approach),” Banerjee said.

The chief minister said that India is a big country with different languages, castes, creeds, and communities, “but we are united, it is our constitution, unity is our strength, and (a) divide is fall,” she said. There are many democratic governments, and India is a big democratic country. Banerjee said that while the Centre is ruled by a different political party, the state (Bengal) has a different one, and each party makes its own decisions when it comes to development work.

Banerjee said that it’s her third term (as chief minister), she has worked as a parliamentarian for seven terms and has also been part of the central government ministries. She fought with a political party with a ‘Leftist ideology’, and after 34 years they were defeated.

Talking about her government, Banerjee said that Covid affected everyone. The state’s economy, however, performed well. “We have been able to create 12 million jobs. What everybody is losing, we are gaining,” she said, attributing the success to the empowerment of women, self-help groups, farmers, artisans, and students. Talking about the fight against hunger, Banerjee said: “Without (a) human face, a government cannot work.”

On the first day of the three-day meeting, two-panel discussions took place where twelve experts from international financial organisations took part in a discussion on the role of digital public infrastructure in financial inclusion and productivity gains, and on the digital financial ecosystem, based on digital public infrastructure.