Duare Sarkar camps to held again in bid to enhance welfare coverage before Lok Sabha polls

The government usually holds Duare Sarkar camps thrice a year, with an interval of four months between each. The sixth leg of the programme was held in April, followed by the seventh edition that ended on September 30. However, the eighth edition was announced within a gap of two-and-a-half months

Snehamoy Chakraborty, TT, Calcutta, 11.12.23 : The Mamata Banerjee government will hold the eighth edition of its Duare Sarkar programme from Friday till December 31, after a rather short interval, to enhance coverage of the state's various welfare schemes before the Lok Sabha polls.

The government usually holds Duare Sarkar camps thrice a year, with an interval of four months between each. The sixth leg of the programme was held in April, followed by the seventh edition that ended on September 30. However, the eighth edition was announced within a gap of two-and-a-half months.

"This leg of Duare Sarkar camp was scheduled quite early to reach out to as many as people with government benefits before the Lok Sabha polls. If the election is announced earlier, then it would have no option to hold such benefit distribution programmes. In case the election is announced late, we can hold another small edition of this flagship programme," a senior government official said.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee started her pet project, the Duare Sarkar initiative, on December 1, 2020, ahead of the 2021 Assembly elections, to reach out to the people with government benefits on their doorsteps. It is widely deemed that this administrative move had worked well on the ground and played a major role in bringing the Trinamul Congress to power for the third consecutive term.

The government has already provided services and benefits to 8.1 crore people in the state through its seven editions of Duare Sarkar camps.

A source said the coming edition was announced at a time when the BJP was spinning a narrative that lakhs of eligible people in the state were deprived of benefits of various schemes because of the alleged corruption. The BJP's attempt behind this narrative is to counter Mamata's narrative of the Centre's step-motherly treatment of Bengal.

The BJP organised a rally in Calcutta on November 29, with thousands of people who were allegedly deprived of the benefits. Union home minister Amit Shah claimed from that rally that a larger section of bonafide beneficiaries were deprived because of Trinamul's corruption, despite the Narendra Modi government allocating funds several times higher than that of the UPA governments.

Jagannath Chattopadhyay, a BJP state general secretary, said the government announced the new leg of Duare Sarkar camps hurriedly because of the party's movement with the deprived beneficiaries of the central schemes in Calcutta last month.

Chattopadhyay added: “The target of the state is to woo that particular community with some other benefits, but they will not be successful.”

A section of officials in the districts, however, are in doubt whether the coming edition would draw a significant number of beneficiaries as there are no new schemes or special focus for this time.

“We have already provided services to 8.1 crore people. The prime demand in those camps is for rural dwelling units and jobs under MGNREGA and the state had nothing to do with those schemes because the centre froze the funds. This time we have been asked to focus on registration of migrant workers like the seventh edition,” said an official in East Midnapore.

However, a senior state government official in the state said the government’s goal for this leg of Duare Sarkar is to reach out to those who are left out of any of the existing government welfare schemes.

“It is a fact that the footfall in this leg will not be huge as the government has already reached out to a maximum number of people and the beneficiaries are saturated in most of the campus. But our goal is not to let anyone be left out of welfare schemes,” he said.