Bengal: Rerun Of Protests Against Anomalies In Free Housing Scheme Exposes Deep Rot In Trinamool Congress

Angry protests over anomalies in the list of beneficiaries for Bangla Awas Yojana (BAY) has once again exposed the deep rot within the ruling Trinamool Congress party. 

BAY is the state government’s own subsidised housing scheme for the poor.

Protests have broken out in South Bengal districts, though reports coming in from the rest of the state suggest that the names of ineligible people have been included in the BAY list in many other districts as well.

Protestors demonstrated before panchayats and government offices in Purulia, Paschim Bardhaman, Birbhum, Hooghly, and South Parganas district earlier this week.

They have alleged that while the poor and homeless have been excluded from the list of beneficiaries prepared earlier this month, the names of family members, relatives, friends, and supporters of local Trinamool Congress leaders who do not meet the criteria have been included. 

The protestors have alleged that many of the listed beneficiaries own concrete houses, large plots of land, and even vehicles, and are not poor at all. The only qualification for their inclusion was their kinship or proximity to local Trinamool leaders. 

Similar allegations are coming in from other districts, including North Bengal, where the scale of malfeasance is allegedly much bigger, with almost the entire list of beneficiaries said to have been rigged in favour of those owing allegiance to the ruling party or those close to local Trinamool leaders. 

Many of the names that figure in the list are those of family members or dependents of local Trinamool leaders.

For instance, a young adult son of a Trinamool leader in Birbhum district who stays in his father’s two-storied concrete house is on the list. He has been shown as a ‘homeless’ person with no income, even though he is involved in his father’s business!

Driven by the fear that these widespread allegations could lead to another round of agitations against the ruling party and the government, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has ordered a re-verification of the list of beneficiaries. 

State chief secretary Manoj Pant met officials of all districts on 30 October and told them to undertake an extensive and honest re-verification of the lists in their districts.

BAY was announced by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in February this year. Under the scheme, the state government will provide Rs 1.3 lakh to poor people in three instalments to help them build concrete houses. Banerjee said grants for building 11 lakh houses would be provided to the poor. 

The launch of BAY, which will cost the exchequer of heavily indebted Bengal a whopping Rs 14,300 crore, was prompted by the Union government's refusal to disburse funds for the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) after similar largescale anomalies were detected in the list of PMAY beneficiaries in 2022. 

Subsequent investigations revealed that even those with huge properties had received PMAY grants meant for housing for the poor. 

Banerjee initially tried to dismiss the protests as motivated and a “political conspiracy” against her and even ordered a brutal police crackdown. But that earned her a lot of criticism and only served to intensify the protests. 

Ultimately, she was forced in the face of overwhelming evidence to admit malfeasance by her party functionaries and leaders. 

She even sanctioned disciplinary action against some of them, but refused to heed the Union government’s directive to register police cases against the guilty leaders and ineligible PMAY beneficiaries and ensure their criminal prosecution. 

Doing so would have either triggered a revolt within her party, since a huge number of party leaders and functionaries at the lower and middle levels were guilty, or would have led to an exodus from the Trinamool. 

Even after the Centre warned that it would stop disbursal of funds under the scheme if action was not taken against the guilty, Banerjee refused to prosecute her guilty party leaders, supporters, and their relatives and family members who had fraudulently received PMAY grants. 

In the face of her steadfast refusal to prosecute the fraudsters, the Union government ultimately stopped disbursal of funds under PMAY to Bengal.

After many pleas to resume the disbursal of funds were turned down by New Delhi, Banerjee announced BAY earlier this year and set a target of grants of Rs 1.3 lakh to build 11 lakh houses for the poor. 

That the target is an unrealistic one, since the state just does not have funds to meet this target, is a different matter. What’s significant is that even after the huge controversy over PMAY beneficiaries and receiving flak for getting their family members, relatives, friends, and supporters in the list of PMAY beneficiaries, Trinamool Congress leaders are once again being accused of the same.

“These people (the Trinamool Congress functionaries) are shameless and are compulsively corrupt. After the Union Government stopped disbursal of funds for PMAY and other central schemes like NREGA and PMGSY, Trinamool leaders were left with no avenue to make money illegally. The BAY came as a godsend to them, and they started committing all kinds of illegal acts once again,” leader of opposition Suvendu Adhikari told Swarajya. 

Even though Banerjee has ordered a re-verification of the list of beneficiaries by officials who have been instructed to canary out a door-to-door authentication of the people whose names are on the list, she has not asked officials to register police cases against those who are ineligible and on the list. 

This shows, once again, that Banerjee is not interested in cracking down on corruption. “As long as the ineligible people who have got themselves enlisted as beneficiaries by fraudulent means are not booked and prosecuted, this sort of corruption will not stop. But Mamata Banerjee cannot afford to do that since she will face a revolt from her corrupt partymen,” said Adhikari.

Also Read: Why Bengal Will Not Receive Central Funds For Building Houses For Rural Poor