Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on Wednesday chaired a review meeting at the Panchayat and Rural Development Department to assess the progress of the VB-G RAM-G rural employment scheme and the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, and said the state was on track to achieve its target of generating 22 crore person-days of employment.

Source: ANI via Daily Prabhat

Speaking to the media after the meeting, Adhikari expressed satisfaction over the progress under the schemes. 'There was a review meeting regarding VB-G RAM-G and Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana scheme today. The progress is very good. We are on track to meet both targets: the creation of 22 crore person-days of employment,' he said, adding that the government currently generates over 7 lakh jobs daily, with 22 lakh rural residents actively employed through the programme, and that less than five months remain to achieve the target.

According to The CSR Journal's report of the same briefing, 65.62 lakh person-days of work have been generated so far, with daily employment reaching 7.09 lakh, and the government aims to raise this to 10 lakh a day by December. The scheme guarantees 125 days of work a year, with each job card holder assured an annual income of Rs 34,500, and allocations worth Rs 12,000 crore have been made jointly by the Centre and the state.

Source: The CSR Journal

The Chief Minister called upon migrant workers from Bengal who have left the state in search of jobs to return home, highlighting the employment available under the scheme. 'Come back and work with your family,' he said. He also said the Centre had cancelled 31 lakh fake job cards identified from the earlier MGNREGA regime, and that after Aadhaar-seeding discrepancies were rectified, the state has issued around 10 lakh new job cards to eligible workers.

Adhikari announced that there will be 7,190 new recruitments in the Panchayat and Rural Development Department. The CSR Journal reported that the Cabinet has approved the recruitment of the 7,190 personnel through the Public Service Commission, with recruitment rules to be revised after the Assembly session and the new appointees expected to start work by April 2027, alongside another 1,000 contractual personnel to be hired for one year. ANI reported that the government will convene a special session of the Legislative Assembly to pass a new law connected with the department.

A full-fledged Panchayat Bhavan will be constructed on a five-acre plot in New Town, near the proposed sites of the Calcutta High Court and the state Assembly, to centralise panchayat operations. On rural housing, Panchayat Minister Dilip Ghosh said 47 lakh beneficiaries who were deprived of homes during the previous administration would receive housing under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana over the next two years. The government also plans to publish a booklet detailing 375 work schemes for distribution to rural communities.