“No one can deny that Mamata Banerjee has ushered in an era of ‘poriborton’ (change) since she came to power in 2011,” said Purnendu Bose, the Trinamool leader who joined Didi’s movement for change during the agitation in Singur between 2006 and 2010. He pointed out the infrastructure in the state of West Bengal has improved with better roads not just in the capital city of Kolkata but also in the villages. Speaking at a press conference at the Kolkata Press Club to kick start the campaigning for Parliamentary elections less than a year away, he urged all to take stock.
Travelling to the interiors of several villages this correspondent found that construction of better roads has indeed been one of the main reasons for the villagers’ contentment with their government. Rehman Islam, 40, a farmer from a Sunderban village, who has started a business of carting his farm produce to the city market in a cycle van said, “Earlier travelling by road to the city to sell our produce was a nightmare because there were no proper roads. The roads that were there were not well maintained and after the rainy season most of the roads were in really terrible condition.” He said that often the asphalt was often completely washed off after the monsoon season and the repair work was slow. “Not that the roads don’t get damaged during the rains now too but the repair work usually is a little faster,” he says, adding, “at least the road that I travel from the Canning area to Kolkata.”
Says Bankim Hajra, Sunderban Development Minister, “Roads are not the only area where improvement has taken place. Homes in most of the villages have been electrified too.” Electricity includes both grid and solar. “Solar electricity is a useful power source when there are power cuts,” says Poritosh Deb of Goshaba village in the Sunderbans. “This government has done a lot of work in the area of infrastructure,” he says corroborating. However, utilities such as drinking water supply remain an issue in the villages of the Sunderbans. “The problem is exacerbated by the climate change and the regular occurrence of cyclones which causes salty water to seep into the ground and render fresh drinking water undrinkable,” says Gouranga Mete, an NGO worker in the Sundarbans Ghoramara Island.
However, the Trinamool government has initiated a plan to supply drinking water in pipelines in different villages by 2025.
“The past decade has seen so many changes and improvements that one can say that Didi has really tried to usher in ‘poriborton’,” says Poritosh Deb of Goshaba. It resonates with others, who say that these changes have made a difference in their lives.