TMC’s 1 cr letters to PM drive: Over 1L letters collected in 12 days in Alipurduar

alipurduar: As part of Trinamool Congress’ (TMC) one crore letters to Prime Minister Narendra Modi drive over the MGNREGA dues of Bengal, 140,000 letters—signed by the workers of 100-days job scheme— demanding the clearance of state’s share of the funds have been collected from Alipurduar in about 12 days. These will be sent to the TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on Tuesday. According to reports more 300,000 letters will be handed over by TMC workers from the district in the coming days.

During a rally in Baburhat, Alipurduar, in March, Abhishek Banerjee requested MGNREGA workers to write one crore letters addressing the Prime Minister to clear the funds of the state.

“One crore letters from the people of Bengal will be sent to the Prime Minister demanding our share of funds. I will take all these letters to the central government in Delhi,” said Abhishek from the rally.

An outreach drive to get the letters signed by the workers across the state was launched by him. In response, TMC workers started collecting letters from the district on May 3. Since the procedure began, 140,000 have been collected

Prakash Chik Baraik, the Alipurduar district president of TMC, stated: “Within 12 days, we have collected 140,000 letters from MGNREGA workers from the district whose wages are still not cleared.”

“According to our data, Alipurduar district has over 600,000, MGNREGA card holders, out of which more than 400,000 have pending dues, amounting to Rs 492 crore. We have collected 140,000 letters from 64 gram panchayats in Alipurduar district. We will be sending them to Kolkata on Tuesday. The remaining letters from card holders will be collected and sent within this month, “ he added.

“The Central government and BJP leaders have deprived the poor people of Alipurduar. There are 300,000 households in the district, out of which 125,000 households have been enrolled in the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana. The inspection work has been completed, and in the first allotment, 65,006 households have been approved, amounting to around Rs 672 crore. However, the Central government has not released any funds yet on that,” Baraik said.

MLA, Suman Kanjilal said: “We have collected over 40,000 letters from the district so far.” We have had an enormous response since the start of the letter collection campaign. For the previous two years, employees have not been paid. Those who had worked in the villages for 100 days but had not been paid signed the letter, confirming their identity and job

card numbers.”