Rattled by the Mizoram incident, where a large number of workers, including an estimated 24 from West Bengal died after a railway bridge collapsed, chief minister Mamata Banerjee has threatened to take strong action against the contractor, who took the migrant labourers of Malda district to the north-eastern state for contractual jobs.

She also urged lakhs of migrant workers from Bengal to come back to the state because her government has generated huge employment opportunities in different small scale and medium enterprises (MSME) sectors. While announcing branding of ‘Banglar Saree’ at Biswa Bangla Mela complex on Wednesday, Miss Banerjee said, “A contractor of Mizoram lured workers of Malda and took them to the northeastern state for a construction work of a railway bridge.

We will take action against the contractor.” “We will also take action against other contractors who also lure workers of our state offering cash and take them to other states,” the chief minister added. “Thirty five workers, including 24 from Ratua in Malda district, died after an underconstruction railway bridge collapsed. I will ask migrant workers who are still outside Bengal to come back to your own state.

Our government will provide all support for your job opportunities. Don’t get frustrated, instead rely on our government,” she added. “From now, we will register names of migrant workers through our ‘Duare Sarkar’ camps across the state. “We have already arranged financial support of Rs 5 lakh bank loan scheme for unemployed youths so that they could run small businesses. The state government also gives Rs 25,000 in this regard,” she also added. She asked the chief secretary to prepare a list of construction workers so that they could be engaged in different construction industries in the state. She also proposed involvement of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Association of India (CREDAI), Bengal chapter in the initiative. “People, who are unwilling to take risk of bank loans, also have other employment scopes in our state.

There are so many alternatives like langcha hub, leather industry, tea stalls with bread, chop, ghugni, zari works and beauty parlour etc. Start a small business taking a small amount of loan of Rs 1 lakh,” the chief minister said. She also said that the state government has set up 102 small and medium scale industrial parks across districts. Huge plots of vested land are illegally occupied by a section of people and the government would recover the land by evicting unauthorized occupiers.