Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday announced a new scheme — Amader Para Amader Samadhan — in an apparent bid to reach out to residents of all 80,000-odd booths in the state ahead of next year's Assembly polls.

The announcement came a day after ruling Trinamool's Martyrs' Day rally in Calcutta.

"There are certain small things like installing a water source, repairing a small road or the roof of an ICDS centre or a primary school. This scheme will focus on such issues and resolve these problems within 60 days.... Such things make people happy as they realise someone is listening to them,” Mamata said during a news conference at Nabanna on Tuesday.

The chief minister said that one camp under the scheme would be held by clubbing three booths in a day. People living in a booth area can visit the camps with their problems. Government officials would decide which work could be done and then carry it out.

“The state government has allotted a sum of ₹8,000 crore for this project. A sum of ₹10 lakh could be spent for each of the 80,000 booths (in Bengal). As there are so many booths, it will take 60 days to complete the camps,” said the chief minister.

Sources in the administration said that the state government could not focus on infrastructure development in the past few years as the cash-strapped government was mainly focusing on welfare schemes like Lakshmir Bhandar, Krishak Bandhu or old age pensions.

“Since the gram panchayats did not take any development project due to lack of funds after the Centre froze funds under several rural development schemes, people are suffering from bad roads or lack of drinking water facilities. These issues can become a major headache for the ruling party ahead of the 2026 Assembly polls. This is the reason why the chief minister came forward to address the issue,” said a senior official.

The scheme would start from August 2 and continue for next 60 days to cover all the booths.

Sources in the state government said that before the 2021 Assembly polls the state government had launched a programme called “Paray Samadhan” to resolve local issues at the grassroots level.

“The programme had played as an important factor along with some other factors like Lakshmir Bhandar or Duare Sarkar behind Trinamool's success in 2021 Assembly polls and 2024 Lok Sabha polls. The chief minister has now launched a scheme similar to Paray Samadhan to reach out to common voters at a time when her government is facing tough questions over irregularities in recruitment of teachers or the RG Kar and Kasba law college incidents,” said a source.