Meals being served in Ghughumari. Picture by Main Uddin Chisti

Cooch Behar, April 8: A day before the model code of conduct for the panchayat polls comes into effect, the zilla parishad here started a scheme that provides one cooked meal a day to people who are too feeble to earn for themselves.

The state budget had allocated Rs 100 crore for this project for the current financial year, but the sudden launch of the scheme has surprised many politicians. Around 25,000 people in 12 blocks will benefit from it.

In Ghugumari, one of the villages where the scheme was launched, CPM pradhan Sailendranath Roy was pulled up by the Forward Bloc and the Congress. Both the parties alleged that the Opposition had been kept in the dark. In Cooch Behar, the Bloc and the CPM are at loggerheads with each other and the junior Left Front partner is almost like the Opposition here.

Reacting to charges levelled by Archana Chowdhury, the Bloc gram panchayat member, Roy said: “We were asked over telephone by the block development officer to start the scheme immediately because the model code comes into existence from tomorrow. If the project was not launched today, people would have suffered and gone without meals for another three months or so.” Although the model code will end by May end, the new board of the zilla parishad would need another two months or so to settle down.

The Congress member of the gram panchayat, Nazrul Islam, alleged that the CPM was only feeding its voters. “The entire scheme is politically motivated with an eye on the panchayat polls,” Islam said. The scheme was kick started after an order came to the zilla parishad from the department of panchayats and rural development.

The additional district magistrate of Cooch Behar (development), Panna Lal Mahapatra, said the district had already prepared a list of people who would benefit from the scheme. “Today we served meals at 60 centres in the 12 blocks of the district,” Mahapatra said.

Self-help group members, who are in charge of mid-day meals in primary schools, have been given the responsibility to cook for the beneficiaries of this scheme too.

According to sources in the zilla parishad, one of the three tiers of the panchayat system, funds for the scheme are yet to reach the treasury.

The project was launched using funds available with the zilla parishad, panchayat samities and the gram panchayats.