Proper planning by govt helps Bankura leprosy patients turn self reliant

Proper planning by the Panchayat and Rural Development department has helped lepers to earn livelihood and come to the mainstream of life in Bankura.

The unique scheme helped them become economically self reliant and give up begging. This is for the first time in the country that such a scheme has been taken up.

It may be mentioned that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will inaugurate the two-day Panchayat conference at Netaji Indoor stadium where she will award three districts for taking up innovative schemes and implanting various projects. Some blocks will also be rewarded.

This will boost up the panchayats to implement schemes that give benefit to poor people.

For generations, the lepers who got cured are neglected by their families who refuse to take them back.

The lepers wait for some months and when they are released from hospital they have no place to go and take up begging as the means of livelihood.

In Bankura district, lepers begging on the railway station and other places were a common sight and even the NGOs generally do not take up their cause. Over the years the beggars have set up their colonies.

After coming to power in 2011, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee urged the Panchayat and Rural development department to take up schemes so that lepers could be brought back to the mainstream of life.

Under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act Scheme (MGNREGA), the lepers were trained to grow orchard on a portion of the land belonging to the state run leper hospital.

They were given saplings and taught the basics. But as the trees take several years to grow, they were also taught to grow vegetables which they can sell in the market and earn livelihood.

Because of initial success, most of the leapers have given up begging and have joined the mainstream of life.

"We are trying hard to bring them to the mainstream of life. As begging is an age old practice, even the beneficiaries take time to give it up. When we find them, we bring them and try to convince them," said a senior official of the Panchayat and Rural development department.