Bengal has been excluded from a Rs 50,000 crore central scheme to provide jobs to migrant workers who went back home during the lockdown amid claims the state was not even asked to send the list of districts which received high volume of returnees over the past couple of months.
The Garib Kalyan Abhiyaan project announced on Thursday will be implemented in 116 districts in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Odisha.
A Press Information Bureau release said the scheme would be launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi through videoconference at Telihar village in Bihar’s Khagaria district on June 20.
“It is surprising that the state was not even asked to send a list of districts where works under the scheme can be executed. I don’t know why Bengal was not included in the scheme,” said a senior state government official. The state received around 11 lakh returnees in the past two months.
According to the scheme, 25 different types of works would be taken up to provide employment to migrants and create infrastructure in rural areas. The 125-day programme will be executed with the co-ordination of ministries and departments like rural development, road transport & highways, mines, drinking water & sanitation, environment, railways, petroleum & natural gas, new & renewable energy, border roads and telecom and agriculture.
Sources said the Centre had picked up those districts where more than 25,000 migrants had returned during the coronavirus-induced nationwide lockdown.
“At least six districts in Bengal — Malda, Murshidabad, Birbhum, Cooch Behar, South 24-Parganas and Purulia — would have met the criteria. But for unknown reasons, we were not asked to send the list of such districts,” said another state official.
A section of officials at Nabanna said Bengal’s decision against implementation of central schemes like PM-Kisan and Ayushman Bharat might have played a role in the state’s exclusion from Garib Kalyan Abhiyaan.
“But the Centre should have asked the state to send a list of districts where the project could be implemented. This is not the time to take political revenge, but to help those who came back after losing jobs,” said an official.
Trinamul insiders said though the party was yet to discuss the issue in detail, it was clear the BJP government at the Centre deliberately ignored poor returnees.
“In the long run, it will help us. Everybody will understand that the Centre was not at all trying to help migrant workers from Bengal. If the intention was to help the migrants, Bengal would have been included as more than 11 lakh workers have come back after losing their jobs,” said a minister.