The state government of Kolkata has decided to merge the Micro and Small Scale Enterprises (MSSE) and Textiles department with the Large Industries and Enterprises department. The decision was taken in the Cabinet meeting held on Friday to downsize the number of its departments and also taken keeping in mind the idea to reduce costs in running the government and for better delivery of services to people.

Besides merging the departments, the department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms was designated as the department of Personnel, Administrative Reforms and e-governance.

After the merger, Micro and Small Scale Enterprises and Textiles department will be looked after by Amit Mitra, who is the state Finance minister.

Before the merger, Swapan Debnath was the minister of state for MSSE and the Textiles department. He was also the minister of state with independent charge of Animal Resources Development (ARD) department. Debnath will, however, continue to serve as minister of state for ARD department.

The decision has been taken keeping in mind the monumental increase in importance of the department after major steps taken by the state government when Trinamool Congress formed the government in Bengal.

Hence, there will be better coordination if the department gets merged with the Large Industries and Enterprises department. For this purpose, 21 departments were merged into 10.

It may be mentioned that 63 departments of the state government had been downsized to 52 in December 2016. This was done to increase the focus on e-governance and to ensure better delivery of public services by achieving greater efficiency.