What if you could lodge complaints in a kiosk set up in the city when subjected to communal, gender, or sexual violence, or feel that there should be more municipal health centres that would specialize in detecting a viral epidemic? These are what the Left Front has promised to implement if it is able to form the board in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation.

The Left, in its manifesto for the KMC polls, has announced a host of promises that it would like to fulfil if elected to power in the upcoming civic polls. The idea of being able to lodge complaints when subjected to any sort of harassment will be gaining its place in reality through an “abuse resistance team”. The Left promises that there would be 100 such kiosks in the city where people could convey their grievances or call on a helpline number which would immediately dispatch a team of volunteers to the location of the complainant for help.

With citizens having to run from pillar to post to get a test done for a vector-borne disease, the Left seeks to put an end to such ordeal by setting up a minimum of 20 centres that would especially focus on diseases such as dengue, Covid etc.

Ahead of the civic polls, the Opposition parties in Bengal have time and again levelled allegations of corruption in municipal bodies against the TMC-run government. The Left wants to change this by setting up a municipal vigilance authority where all project tenders of the KMC and its budget details would be posted on the civic body’s website for public information. If any citizen wants to lodge a complaint regarding any municipal issues, they can do so through a complaint cell which will also be set up.

It has been alleged that about 28,000 vacancies lie in the KMC due to the alleged inefficiency by the TMC to make any recruitment. The Left promises to change this by implementing a transparent recruitment system of 100-day workers and creating employment through schemes.

In terms of the education of slum dwellers, the Left intends to chalk out a scheme where teachers in KMC schools will visit the slums where community learning centres will be developed, while midday meals will be regularly served to students to fight malnutrition.

Kolkata being home to many migrant labourers who throng the city for earning their daily bread, the Left Front promises to ensure that these persons will also get a shelter at night where they can rest after a hard day’s labour. Women labourers will also be able to keep their children in crèches while 100-days workers will get a minimum of Rs.327 for a day. The Leftrun Shramajibi canteen and Sharmajibi bazaar, which came to the aid of thousands during the pandemic, will be set up in every ward.

Among several other promises, the Left has vouched it would ensure 24 hours supply of drinking water to every household, and eventually eradicate the use of tube wells in the city. During an emergency situation, it promises to make arrangements of reaching at least 20 litres of drinking water to every household.