The conduct of ‘Duare Sarkar’ — government at your doorstep — camps across West Bengal has been by and large smooth so far, surprising applicants for various schemes who had expected a tough time.
On Thursday, Asha Lata and Tanuja — both employed as cooks in the Golf Gardens area of south Kolkata — walked into a camp held at a neighbourhood park at 11 a.m. and were out, their jobs done, by 1.30 p.m. They both successfully submitted their applications for the government’s ‘Swasthya Sathi’ — health insurance — scheme.
“Separate counters had been set up for each scheme. No one from the party [Trinamool Congress] was allowed into the park. The local councillor continuously asked people to follow COVID-19 protocols. No one without a mask was let in,” said Asha Lata, 23.
“We were told that people [from adjoining slums] had been queuing up from three in the morning, but we were lucky,” said her friend Tanuja Mudi. “There was a counter — a sort of help desk — that gave out only forms. We had to fill up forms here and go to the registration counter, where the queue was the longest and managed by the police. After getting registered, people headed to the counters set up for each scheme.”
Online entries of details
At the ‘Swasthya Sathi’ counter, an official made online entries of the details submitted by them and gave them receipts. The two women were told that they would receive text messages informing them of the date of distribution of the cards.
Equally smooth was the experience of Bisakha Majhi and Shanti Sardar, except that they stood in the queue much longer, considering that both were applying for the highly sought-after Lakshmir Bhandar scheme, which entitles women without job to ₹500 a month (women from the reserved categories will get ₹1,000). Shanti additionally applied for Scheduled Caste certificates for her children.
“There are 27 neighbourhoods in my ward, and to make sure the programmes are held in a planned manner, we are holding camps for nine neighbourhoods at a time,” Archana Sengupta, councillor of Ward no. 94, where this camp took place, told The Hindu.
‘They said sorry’
“We had sufficient police force, including women police, and people followed discipline. We didn’t discriminate between applicants, we treated everybody equally, even those who don’t support our party. In fact, many people said sorry as they finished with the formalities — sorry for not voting for us,” she said.
The ‘Duare Sarkar’ outreach camps started across the State on August 16 and will go on till September 15. As of Thursday, 15,222 camps were held and close to 1.5 crore people applied for the various schemes announced by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
