A recent report by the Right to Food and Work Network in West Bengal has pointed out that only 42% of applicants who participated in the Duare Sarkar scheme had received what they had applied for at the time of the network’s survey. Duare Sarkar — which translates to ‘Government at the Doorstep’ — is a flagship programme of the State government launched in December 2020 months, before the 2021 Assembly election.
The survey comes ahead of panchayat elections in the State, after six rounds of Duare Sarkar have been completed. “The major findings showed that most of the people visiting the camps each time were not first-timers and were applying for the same scheme/service over and over again,” the survey report said. Another highlight of the report was that the most-advertised scheme in the camps was the Chief Minister’s coveted Lakshmir Bhandar, which provides a monthly honorarium to women. The maximum applications were from women applying for the Lakshmir Bhandar and Swasthya Sathi schemes.
The survey report, which was based on information collected from 2,500 respondents across the State, pointed out that Central government schemes had hardly featured in the outlay of the camps. “In the latest round in fact, MGNREGA did not feature at all. Rights-based provisions did not see the publicity or uptake that short term cash transfer based schemes did,” the report said.
