KOLKATA: Achieving a new milestone, the state government provided over 5 crore services to benefit about 3.72 crore people through various initiatives from the Bangla Sahayak Kendras (BSK) on Sunday. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had started 'Bangla Sahayak Kendra' to reduce harassment of consumers while availing benefits of various schemes provided by the state government.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had started the BSKs to reduce harassment of consumers and avail the benefits of various schemes provided by the state government.
Though there are 2,561 Bangla Sahayak Kendras across the state, steps have been taken to set up more than 10,000 BSKs soon.
The state government has appointed more than 7,000 operators to provide free services to consumers, including Kanyashree, Rupashree, Krishakbandhu and Khadya Sathi schemes. Services like mutation of land can be availed at these BSKs. A senior government officer said on an average about five lakh services are provided daily through such BSKs. "Acting on Chief Minister's request to make sure that no centre is underutilised, we have shifted around 290 BSKs to populated areas, and have their centres in the offices of the SDO and BDO," he said.
East Burdwan has received the highest number of services, namely 60,55,747 requests while East Midnapore with over 55 lakh requests occupies the second position. More than 35 per cent of the beneficiaries are women. More than 36 per cent of people, who have availed government services belong to SC and ST categories, while another 6.98 per cent belong to the minority communities.
With BSKs emerging as the most popular single window online platform, the state government has increased the salaries of the operators to over Rs 13,500.