Around 46 lakh women have registered for the newly launched ‘Lakshmir Bhandar’ scheme at the Duare Sarkar camps in the last three days, said chief minister, Mamata Banerjee while urging people not to overcrowd the camps and assured them to organise special camps if needed for distributing the application forms.

Under the scheme, women of SC and ST families would receive monthly assistance of Rs 1,000 and those of the general category would get Rs 500. “Lakshmir Bhandar is a new scheme and it is the right of our women. Till now, we have received 46 lakh applications for the Duare Sarkar scheme. There is nothing to hurry as the camps would continue for a month.

All women who are eligible for the scheme will get the scope of registering their names. Please do not overcrowd and instead maintain Covid protocols while standing in the queues. If required we will hold special camps to accommodate all the eligible beneficiaries,” said Miss Banerjee after the state administrative review meeting at Nabanna.

The second phase of the Duare Sarkar camps is being organised from 16 August to 15 September. Thousands of women have been found queuing up at these camps since early morning to register their names under the scheme. At many places, the rush had led to a stampede-like situation following which many women were injured leading to hospitalisation.

Miss Banerjee yet again alerted people against collecting the forms from any other venue apart from the Duare Sarkar camps. “Any woman who is not a government employee or pension holder is entitled to get the benefits of this scheme. “If the Swasthya Sathi cardholder is a senior citizen and there are three women in the family aged between 25 to 60 then all these three of them are eligible to get the monthly assistance,” she said.

Meanwhile, Miss Banerjee pointed out the problems faced by people due to the merger of the UBI and PNB following a dearth of Bengali knowing staff at PNB. She asked state chief and finance secretaries to take up the issue with the Union finance secretary.

The chief minister also announced setting up ‘Bangla Dairy’, which will be a wholly state-owned company that will produce fresh milk and milk products. The details are being drawn up, she said.

She added that an internal audit would be conducted of the state cooperative banks and the money that is getting deposited in the ghost accounts would be transferred to the state treasury. Acting on complaints of a huge amount of money being deposited in fake bank accounts, Miss Banerjee had announced in March that an internal financial audit of a number of cooperative banks in East Midnapore, including Contai Cooperative Bank.

Without naming Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari she had then said, “Shouldn’t we find out whose money is getting deposited in ghost accounts in these banks? We are compelled to conduct a probe when we receive complaints.”