Addressing the first meeting of the State Scheduled Caste Council with the MLAs and state ministers, chief minister Mamata Banerjee asked Backward class welfare( BCW) officials not to pay heed to the criticisms and instead continue their hard work.

“Devote more time in addressing the issues of the people belonging to SC and ST communities,” she said. She even asked job aspirants not to focus solely on government jobs and instead search for opportunities in other sectors that have ample scope. She even directed the police to take immediate action in connection to atrocities against people belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

In Tripura, 10,000 teachers lost their jobs,” she said while asking youths to learn computers. “Many industries are coming up in Bengal and they should look for job opportunities in all sectors. If one has the mentality that he/she would take up only a government job then it is completely wrong,” she added.

Alerting police against people who are waiting to defame the government on law and order, Banerjee said: “I would ask the Director-General of Police (DGP) to take immediate action against incidents of atrocities as well as ensure that no untoward incident occurs.

There are many vultures that are waiting to hatch conspiracy so we have to be alert. Rueing that there were no takers for the 11,000 outlets at Karma Tirtha, Banerjee said the government had created the outlets but there was nobody to do business with. Barring West Bengal, all states and the Centre have withdrawn pensions to retired employees. If we stop providing pensions then we would save Rs 10,000 crore immediately.

Deliberating on the efforts that the state government has taken for the overall development of the SC community, Banerjee said there is 22 per cent job reservation for SC candidates, 17 lakh caste certificates have been provided last year, 40,000 people aged above 60 years get a monthly pension of Rs 1,000 and those aged 25 to 60 years are now eligible to get Rs 1,000 a month under ‘Lakshmi Bhandar’ scheme while 10,000 recruitments have been made against vacant posts.

Banerjee announced constructing 20 lakh houses for people belonging to SC and ST communities.