Kolkata, Feb 5 (IANS): Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said on Wednesday that West Bengal is an ideal business destination now as it does not witness power outages and strikes anymore.

"There is no power cut these days. The days of regular strikes are over. An ideal work culture in the state is prevailing now. This makes West Bengal the best investment destination," the Chief Minister said while addressing the 8th edition of the Bengal Global Business Summit (BGBS)- 2025, the annual event to showcase the state as an ideal investment destination.

She also chose the occasion to reply to the frequent claims made by the opposition that such annual business summits are fruitless exercises and do not percolate to actual investment.

"Often some people raise questions about what would be the outcome of such business summits, but I want to tell them that many other states are following our examples and organising similar business summits. Such summits are quite necessary for the next generations," the Chief Minister said.

She also chose the occasion to highlight the different social welfare schemes run by the state government that had led to the empowerment of people, especially women.

"Bengal is the topper in women empowerment. It is also the topper in terms of development of medium and small scale industries," the Chief Minister said.

She also said that the infrastructure work for the Deucha-Pachami coal block in the Birbhum district of West Bengal is over.

"If we want the work of mining can start from tomorrow only. The process of distribution of compensation for the landowners is over. One member of each such family will be provided with jobs at the project. The projects will employ over a lakh of people. In addition, there will be ancillary industries which will provide additional employment,” the Chief Minister said.