Jan Kalyan Shivir camps, aimed at providing information and application forms for various welfare schemes of the state and central governments, opened across all 16 boroughs of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation on Monday.
The camps, organised by the civic body and open from 10am to 5pm, will continue till Wednesday, officials said.
A KMC official said the longest queues were at counters for the Ayushman Bharat and Annapurna Yojana schemes, with residents seeking to enrol.
Many had also turned up to enrol for the old-age pension schemes, but the forms were not available at the camps on Monday.
At the Borough IX office on Alipore’s Belvedere Road, a long queue of people waiting to enrol for the schemes had formed by noon.
The officials were first asking those in the queue to register their names as they had come to the camps. They were then queuing up in front of tables, distributing the forms.
Many applicants were filling out the forms at the camps and submitting them, while some others took the forms home and will return them by Wednesday.
At Vivekananda Park’s Udjapan Community Hall off Southern Avenue, where the camp for borough VIII had been set up, there were chaotic scenes around noon.
People waiting in the queue grew agitated after being informed that the stock of Ayushman Bharat application forms had been exhausted and that there was no point in continuing to wait.
“We have run out of Ayushman Bharat forms. Those who have come for the scheme should not wait. You will hear announcements in your wards when forms are available again. If required, our teams will visit your homes to distribute the forms and help you fill them,” said a KMC official trying to pacify the crowd at the gate of the community hall.
A little later, an announcement was made over a loudspeaker that those waiting for old-age pension forms should not wait because the forms had yet to arrive.
Officials from fourteen departments of the state government were present at the camps.
Sources said the Jan Shivir camps are akin to the Duare Sarkar camps organised by the Trinamool government.
“The difference is that earlier, we offered only state government schemes. Now we are also offering central government-run welfare schemes,” said an official.