Bengal govt to extend all support to restaurant sector

The West Bengal government on Tuesday said it will offer all kinds of support to the restaurant industry in the state, which has immense potential for employment generation. "We will lend all sort of support to the sector, which holds a lot of employment potential," the state's Additional Chief Secretary of Industries, Alapon Bandyopadhay, said at the launch of the Kolkata chapter of the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI).

NRAI also unveiled the India Food Services Report 2019, which pegged the Kolkata food service sector at Rs 5,049 crore. The number of restaurants in the city is in excess of 38,000, it said.

The restaurant industry is worth Rs 4.23 lakh crore in India, and it is likely to expand to Rs 6 lakh crore by 2023, according to NRAI data. The industry employed 7.3 million people in the country in 2018-19, it added.