KOLKATA: About 2 lakh citizens flocked to 294 camps across Bengal on Sunday to apply for the Rs-1,500 Yuva Sathi payout for 21-to-40-year-old Class-X pass-outs without work. Registration for the monthly allowance started on Sunday.At camp after camp, queues formed as early as 8.30am, though enrolment only started at 11am. TOI spoke to a number of people in queues and all said the allowance would provide them with a breather till they got a decent job. The camps, one in each assembly constituency, will function daily from 11am to 5pm till Feb 26. Around 18 camps have been set up in Kolkata.
Protests erupted at a camp each in Malda’s Chanchal and Dakshin Dinajpur’s Chopra over alleged delay in processing forms. Proceedings resumed after police took away the protesters.Bengal industries minister Shashi Panja, who was supervising a camp in Shyampukur, repeatedly made announcements explaining the eligibility norms and listing the documents the beneficiaries needed to submit.“The response is overwhelming,” she said. “We hurriedly made this arrangement. By the time I reached the site, people had started queuing up. This proves the CM’s announcement is enough for them.”Ratna Chatterjee, MLA of Behala East, said, “More than 700 youths registered in the first hour. The figure crossed 700 when the camp closed for the day.”The govt has allocated Rs 5,000 crore for the scheme, announced in the state govt’s vote-on-account for 2026-27, and estimates that 27.8 lakh people would benefit from it.According to the original schedule, the allowance was to be paid from Aug 15. The CM later brought it forward to April 1. Bengal’s assembly polls are set to be held in the next couple of months.Souvik Porel, 29, a resident of Barisha Vidyasagar Sarani in Behala, was the first person in the queue outside Abahan Community Hall in Behala. He said he turned up at 8.30am.“By 9.30, there were around 100 in the queue. It swelled to 400 when the gates opened,” said Porel. A commerce graduate, Porel lost his job during the Covid pandemic and earns a living as a private tutor.“I am preparing for govt job exams. This scheme will give me some additional funds till I get a govt job,” he said.In the Shyampukur assembly constituency, all the help desks at the camp on the Kashi Bose Lane Durga Puja ground had crowds of prospective beneficiaries around them.But the unemployment issue led to political sparring. Leader of opposition in the assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, questioned the need for physical camps instead of an online system.Yuva Sathi, he said, would meet the same fate as a similar scheme launched in 2013. The scheme, he said, was effectively terminated as no funds had been allocated since the 201718 fiscal.Trinamool Congress dismissed the criticism, accusing the BJP-led Centre of failing to generate enough employment and asserting that the state govt remained committed to supporting job seekers. State finance minister Chandrima Bhattacharya said, “Unlike BJP, we don’t announce any initiative to stop it.”(Written with additional inputs by agencies)
