In the midst of allegations of nepotism in allotment of houses under Bangla Awas Plus scheme, a student leader of the ruling Trinamul Congress has declined to accept the fund, even though the family is eligible.

The Awas Plus beneficiary list for Jagadanandapur panchayat in Katwa meanwhile maintained a fictitious name of one Sudeshna Roy, listing her five times, replacing ‘true’ beneficiaries. Surprisingly, the ruling party and the opposition leaders together have raised their voice against the erroneous beneficiary list, saying, “There’s no Sudeshna Roy in our panchayat area. How can this be accommodated, that too five times?” The fictitious name has been accommodated as the ‘husband’ of a male beneficiary Dhanu Majhi and as father of another beneficiary Kshudiram Khan of Amdanga village.

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In Galsi-I, not a single beneficiary could be accommodated from as many as 13 villages, which prompted the TMC-governed panchayat to seek the departmental minister’s intervention.

State panchayat minister Pradip Majumdar said: “It clearly appears to be a mistake by the data entry operators. These will be rectified in a fresh survey, for sure.”

Tanmoy Goswami, the block president of the Trinamul Congress Chhatra Parishad in Ausgram-I yesterday surrendered the ‘benefit’ officially after meeting the local BDO, Sheikh Kamrul Islam and the sabhapati of the panchayat samiti, Tapas Chatterjee.

The family of the president of Trinamul Congress Chhatra Parishad’s Ausgram-I block in East Burdwan had applied for enrollment in Bangla Awas Plus scheme in 2018. After the routine survey, the name of Tanmoy’s father Prabhat Goswami, a temporary employee of a chemical fertilizer outlet in neighbouring Bolpur, got a berth in the list of beneficiaries, which was published recently.

Tanmoy meanwhile got a temporary job with a Bangla Sahayata Kendra (BSK – a single window initiative of the government for providing multiple government services) centre. Tanmoy said, “We didn’t have a concrete shelter when we applied six years ago. But, in the interim period I’ve become an earning member of the family and by selling a portion of farmland we erected a concrete house two years ago.”

He added, “Since we’ve already got a house, we felt the fund meant for us to be altered to another beneficiary.” The leaders of the ruling party and the Opposition appreciated Tanmoy’s gesture.