Arvind Kumar Meena, the district magistrate of Cooch Behar, and Dyutiman Bhattacharya, the superintendent of police, conducted a checking of the list of beneficiaries of the housing scheme in Cooch Behar 1 block on Thursday.

The exercise was conducted to confirm that only the names of people who are eligible for assistance under the Bangla Awas Yojana were on the list. The state government is likely to release a portion of the funds to the beneficiaries for the construction of houses next month.

“We are working on a database and the survey is in progress. The survey will finish by December 5. Today (on Thursday), we conducted the checking to ensure that only eligible people get the assistance,” said Meena.

Meena and Bhattacharya, along with administrative and police officials, visited households in Charakerkuthi village of the block.

Sources in the administration said in Cooch Behar, around four lakh people were marked as potential beneficiaries of the scheme.

Unlike most other districts, the survey in Cooch Behar was delayed as the model code of conduct was in force because of the by-election in the Sitai Assembly constituency.

“The survey is going on in full swing now and around 1,200 teams are working in the district. Senior officials have been specially trained to conduct the super-checking,” said a source.

Despite these efforts, there have been incidents of protests and disruptions. In Mathabhanga and Gitaldaha, a section of villagers have attacked the survey teams. Also, in Tufanganj, villagers locked a panchayat office on Wednesday, alleging their names had not been included in the list.

To address these issues, senior officials, including the DM and the SP, took the task of visiting the villages and interacting with residents.

“There was a misunderstanding among a section of villagers that new names were being added to the beneficiary list. This had led to some resistance but we clarified that the current process was just a verification of the pre-existing list,” said an official.