North 24-Parganas district magistrate Sharad Kumar Dwivedi on Sunday personally heard villagers' grievances in the remote Sandeshkhali region of the Sunderbans delta, where many were excluded from the list of rural housing scheme's beneficiaries.

Dwivedi visited Bermajur 2 gram panchayat to cross-examine the ongoing beneficiary survey, aiming to address allegations of corruption. Villagers recounted their struggles, explaining how they were denied homes under the scheme, with some left to live under the sky.

The visit by the district magistrate came amid growing concerns over eligibility irregularities in the rural housing scheme called Banglar Awas Yojana (BAY).

Under BAY, eligible beneficiaries receive ₹1.2 lakh in three instalments to build pucca homes. Nevertheless, numerous villagers alleged their names were removed or replaced by those of people with political connections and having pucca houses.

Accompanied by Sandeshkhali 1 block development officer (BDO) Sayantan Sen and other senior officials, Dwivedi conducted door-to-door inspections armed with the official beneficiary list of 2018. Many residents voiced their anger, describing how they had initially been listed but later found their allotments given to others who owned pucca homes.

“I learned my name was on the list, and I waited for years only to discover it was assigned to someone else in the village who already owns a concrete house,” one villager told officials.

Many villagers explained how they had been denied the one-time ex-gratia offered by the state government after Cyclone Amphan had struck.

Dwivedi declined comments.

But BDO Sayantan Sen told reporters: “The DM spent hours with residents. They told him that the survey had also been done earlier. He emphasised that those with pucca houses should not be considered beneficiaries and underscored the need for genuine distribution.”

The inspection by the district magistrate came just a day after residents of Hasnabad’s Barunhat-Rameswarpur area in North 24-Parganas staged a protest against the exclusion of their names from the beneficiary list, although the original 2018 list had their names.

Reports of extensive corruption in the rural housing scheme surfaced in late October when a fresh survey began.