Sarenga (Bankura), July 13: Mamata Banerjee today wrapped up her Jungle Mahal visit by declaring that all tribal families would be brought under the BPL category so that even the poorest didn’t have to go hungry in the poverty-stricken belt.

An estimated 1.7 lakh tribal families live in the 23 blocks of Jungle Mahal spread across West Midnapore, Purulia and Bankura, where the chief minister ended her two-day trip.

“Most of the tribals are extremely poor. Very few of them have made money. Most of them don’t have BPL cards. It will take some time before the cards are prepared. We have decided to declare all tribal families living in Jungle Mahal as BPL families,” Mamata told a 6,000-strong crowd at the Mission Ground in Sarenga block.

A BPL cardholder is entitled to rice at Rs 2 a kg along with free schooling and health care benefits.

The Mamata government has already decided to double the quota of BPL rice from the existing 1kg a week. As the government already offers a BPL cardholder 4kg of rice every month, the amount would go up to 8kg a month now.

“The chief minister and food minister have already announced that there will be no compromise on allocation of rice for Jungle Mahal,” joint secretary, food, Gopinath Mukherjee said.

The chief minister’s announcement followed a list of demands that Thakurmoni Soren, the pradhan of the Trinamul-run Goalbari gram panchayat in Sarenga block, had given her. “I told Didi the survey carried out to identify BPL cardholders was not complete as remote areas had been left out. I said the poorest of poor need food. I also asked for pucca roads and a school in every block. Didi told me she wanted to provide food first,” Thakurmoni later said.

Mamata told the crowd she didn’t “want any person to go without food” in Jungle Mahal. “I am instructing the BDOs, SDOs, OCs, ADMs and DMs to provide food whenever they hear that somebody hasn’t eaten,” she said.

The chief minister repeated her decision to recruit 10,000 youths from Jungle Mahal as national volunteers, home guard and special police constables, but didn’t mention the Maoists even once. The only time she referred to the history of blood-spilling in the area was when she said: “There should be no guns, no bloodshed.”

Asked why Mamata didn’t repeat her talks offer to the Maoists, a Trinamul leader said: “She has already made her offer of peace. Now it is for the Maoists to decide

Mamata also dwelt on another problem. “Doctors don’t want to come to Jungle Mahal. We will give special opportunities for doctors who come here. Residential quarters will be built for them,” she said.