Bankura district magistrate S. Arun Prasad on Monday launched an outreach programme named “Weekly Grievance Day” to find on-the-spot solutions to grievances of people living in a district that is part of the state’s Jungle Mahal region.

Sources said the move came a week after Prasad surveyed tribal villages in the vicinity of the district headquarters on foot to witness first-hand the problems of the people.

In this initiative, Prasad is following his predecessor Uma Sankar S., who introduced the idea, but had to stop it following the Covid-19 outbreak, said an official of the district administration.

The grievance day event kicked off on Monday at Rabindra Bhavan auditorium, the same venue where Union home minister Amit Shah held a political meeting on November 5.

“We are intimating all the block level and departmental officials to address grievances on the spot. On the first day, around 40 persons came to us with grievances,” Prasad said.

“The DM will visit different areas, mainly in pockets of the Jungle Mahal as part of the outreach programme every alternate Sunday,” an official said.

The initiative is significant as the ruling Trinamul Congress had fared poorly in the area in the 2021 Lok Sabha polls.

The BJP bagged five out of six parliamentary seats and the Trinamul lagged behind the BJP in 31 of 40 Assembly segments in the Jungle Mahal area. In the Ranibandh

Assembly segment, the Trinamul had also lagged behind the BJP. In Bankura, ruling Trinamul lagged behind the saffron party in all 12 Assembly seats.

Sources said chief minister Mamata Banerjee has asked district magistrates and other officials to reach out to remote areas of Jungle Mahal in order to address people’s demands and grievances.

In her recent administrative meeting in Jhargram—one of the Jungle Mahal districts — Banerjee directed district officials to reach out to tribal hamlets and meet villagers to know what they want.

Sanatan Kundu, an 82-year-old retired chemistry professor from Bankura’s Chhatna, met the district on Monday regarding an ongoing land related dispute. “I am facing severe torture by one of my relatives over land. I approached the district magistrate requesting him a solution for it. He assured me of help.”

Senior officials said that earlier, such meetings or public grievance days used to take place in the office of the district magistrate. But now, authorities had chosen the Rabindra Bhavan auditorium to maintain Covid protocol.