After Mamata Banerjee's announcement, migrant labourers want to return to West Bengal

After the recent incidents of labourers from Bengal being killed in other states and the subsequent announcement of Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee urging them to return to their native land if they felt insecure, labourers from districts such as Purulia and Malda are returning in hundreds to West Bengal.

District Magistrate of Purulia, Alokesh Prasad Roy, talking to DNA, confirmed the developments. “Till date, I have received about 450 applications from people who had left the state to work in other states. We will have to get a concurrence from the state labour department and after that, we will have to ask these applicants to put in their schemes in specific formats. We will have to examine each case individually before allotting the money,” Roy said on Wednesday.

Asked if they again decide to return to work outside the state after receiving the money, he said, “The money will not be paid outright and there will be a monitoring system after it is disbursed.”

District officials of Malda too said that there was a rush after the announcement of the CM. “After the brutal murder of Md Afrazul Khan, a labourer from Malda district who went to work in Rajasthan, the CM had said that people who intended to return would be given 200 days’ work or a financial assistance of Rs 50,000 to set up his own business. That has led to an avalanche of people who expressed their intention to return to Malda,” said a senior official of the district administration.

On December 12, 2017, Mamata, at a public rally at Kotshila area in Purulia district had announced that labourers who had migrated elsewhere were welcome if they felt insecure and wanted to return.

“People of Rajasthan, UP, Bihar work here in West Bengal. They have made this place their motherland and we have welcomed them as well. But if people from West Bengal went to work at Rajasthan, why were they murdered? If these people want to return to West Bengal, they can get their names enrolled at the respective district magistrate’s office. We will ensure that they get 200 days’ work a year. Again, the state can also provide for a one-time financial assistance of Rs 50,000 to people like these to set up their own business unit,” she had said.