West Bengal government’ flagship event, ‘Duare Sarkar’- a mega outreach programme to deliver governement schemes at the doorstep of citizens – has been launched on Tuesday.

The programme will see governement officials visiting door to door to ensure people get advantage of at least 11 schemes launched by the West Bengal administration since 2011. There will also be camps for citizens to enroll their name for a scheme.

Announcing the programme, which will last for two months from November 1 to January 31, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had said last week that benefits of government schemes and services will be delivered to eligible beneficiaries at their doorstep through camps organised in each gram panchayat and municipality area.

The flagship schemes include the globally acclaimed ‘Kanyashree’ (a cash transfer scheme aimed at retaining girls in schools and preventing their early marriage), besides ‘Khadya Sathi'( for ensuring that almost 90 per cent of the population comes under food security), ‘Sikshashree’ (one time grant given to SC and ST students from class 5 to class 8 to go to schools).

Other government schemes like ‘Rupashree (one-time financial grant of Rs 25,000 for economically stressed families at the time of their daughter’s marriage), ‘Jai Johar’ (for the betterment of ST people), ‘Taposili Bondhu’ (pension scheme for SC people), ‘Akhyashree’ (a scheme that provides scholarships to students of minority communities in the state) and MGNREGS will also be included, Bandopadhyay told reporters at the state secretariat.

“In addition, applications related to schemes, including social pensions like old age, widow, persons with disabilities implemented by any government department would be received during the course of this outreach programme for appropriate action,” West Bengal chief secretary Alapan Banerjee said as quoted by PTI.

The West Bengal government has prepared Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for the programme, he said.

“Senior officials in the rank of SDOs and BDOs will be monitoring the developments. Feedback from attendees will be collected during and after the outreach programme.

“The experience of each phase will be used to improve the delivery of services to the beneficiaries attending subsequent camps,” Banerjee said.

The entire state government machinery of the state government will be working in mission-mode for ensuring the success of this programme, he added.

The programme is being seen as a measure to counter the corruption charges that have surfaced against the Mamata Banerjee administration in recent times.

Ahead of the Assembly Elections next year, the success of the ‘Duare Sarkar’ outreach could well be a boon for Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC), fighting to save it government against BJP.

With PTI inputs