This story is from June 26, 2020

No Bengal in PM’s ‘Atma Nirbhar’ job plan

No Bengal in PM’s ‘Atma Nirbhar’ job plan
Kolkata: Bengal pulling out of the Ayushman Bharat health scheme has cast a shadow on the hand-holding the state needs from the Centre on the migrant workers’ front.
PM Narendra Modi will launch the ‘Atma Nirbhar Uttar Pradesh Rojgar Abhiyan’ on June 26 to provide employment, promote local entrepreneurship and create partnership with industrial associations, but the Centre’s initiative is absent in Bengal.
The programme dovetails central government programmes and those of the state.
Bengal also does not figure in the Rs 50,000-crore Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyan that the PM kicked off for six states on June 20.
According to chief minister Mamata Banerjee, as many as 11 lakh migrant workers have returned to the state by trains. The figure is likely to increase if one takes into account migrants who reached by buses, hired vehicles and also by air.
Bengal’s numbers may not be comparable with nearly 30 lakh migrant workers in Uttar Pradesh, but districts like Cooch Behar, Malda, Murshidabad, Paschim Medinipur, Nadia and Howrah have a population of more than 25,000 migrant workers each, meeting the Centre’s criterion.
Banerjee has asked the administration to engage these workers in MNREGS programmes for rural asset creation. The state also has plans to engage skilled workers in MSME units preparing personal protective equipment, masks and sanitisers.

But the state’s effort — right from Covid-19 surveillance to exploring employment opportunities for those engaged in the unorganised sector and migrant workers in particular — would have got a boost had the Centre come forward with a helping hand like it did for other states. The issue was discussed at the all-party meeting the CM had convened at Nabanna on Wednesday.
Senior Trinamool minister Subrata Mukherjee felt the matter was best left for people to judge. “The Prime Minister has taken the decision. It is only for Uttar Pradesh. No other state has been included in the project,” he said.
Bengal BJP general secretary Sayantan Basu put it bluntly. “One can’t expect such joint initiative in Bengal as long as Trinamool is in power. This government is keen on picking up a fight with the Centre rather taking a constructive path. Hand-holding doesn’t happen when the other hand is ready for fisticuffs. There is no denying that people are suffering in the state. Unlike Uttar Pradesh, the Bengal government hasn’t provided the data on migrant workers from each district to the Centre as yet,” Basu said.
The Bengal CM has taken the issue to the political level. Banerjee roped in all party representatives present at Wednesday’s meet to draft a “consensus” resolution that will include, among others, the Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyan programme in which Bengal doesn’t figure.
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