Queuing has become a staple of democracy in India: for food rations, for registration in the government system, for voting. In West Bengal, queues outside local government offices are becoming more common.
After days of millions queuing for Special Intensive Revision (SIR) and trying to prove they are genuine voters, the youth of West Bengal started queuing again from Sunday, February 15.
The line was extended until February 17. Thousands of people gathered at the Banglar Yuba Saathi registration camp at the Geetanjali Stadium in East Kolkata. Anjali Shaw (25) sorts through documents at the registration camp. “It would be better if we got jobs instead. There’s not much hope given the state of the job market, both state and national. But this money is a huge help for now,” he says. Anjali is a graduate and used to work in a private company but lost her job.
On February 5, West Bengal Finance Minister Chandrima Bhattacharya presented the 2026-27 budget in the State Assembly. The budget, months before the West Bengal assembly vote, announced a new financial incentive for unemployed West Bengal youth, called Banglar Yuba Sathi.
Yuva Saathi Registration Center at Kasi Bose Lane, North Kolkata. | Photo credit: Shrabana Chatterjee
“Under this scheme, those between 21 and 40 years of age who have passed Madhyamik (Class 10), unemployed and not covered by any government welfare scheme other than education allowance or scholarship, are entitled to a monthly support of ₹ 1,500 till they get a job or up to 5 years, whichever is earlier,” said Finance Minister Treasucheers in the state assembly M. Benrycheches.
In line for money
About 2 million people filled the forms on the very first day the camp was set up, government sources say. By the end of the week, the number of young people who will register for the program is in the millions. There are graduates, postgraduates, even those with MBA degrees.
“My brother does ad hoc work. He has no regular income even though he is a graduate,” says Suman Mondal, who is helping his brother fill the Yuva Saathi registration form at Geetanjali Stadium.
In the Mondal family, Suman’s wife and mother also receive a monthly allowance of ₹1,500 each under West Bengal’s Lakshmir Bhandar scheme, a direct cash transfer welfare scheme for women. They hope that the cumulative ₹4,500 will help make life easier in their household.
The state government budgeted an additional amount of ₹ 5,000 crore for the scheme. While the scheme was to be launched from August 15, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee directed that camps be set up across the state from mid-February and the first installment of cash under the scheme was credited to accounts on April 1.
Some women and men were also accompanied by their parents at the registration center. “Who likes standing in a queue to collect unemployment benefits? But that’s the reality,” says a father who is waiting in a queue on behalf of his son at another Yuva Saathi centre.
Sampa Bhattacharya, mother of a 20-year-old college student standing in the queue, says, “Everyone in our locality comes here to queue up and get their share of the scheme. I understand Lakshmir Bhandar, my daughter doesn’t. So it’s good for her.”
The Banglar Yuva Saathi registration camp on Kasi Bose Lane in North Kolkata is on a smaller site than the Geetanjali Stadium, but the number of queues is disproportionate to the site.
Along with the Yuva Sathi Registration Department, the authorities have also set up a Lakshmir Bhandar Registration Camp. It is a cash incentive scheme for women below 60 years of age in West Bengal. Announcements are made over loudspeakers asking anyone who has “still not registered at Lakshmir Bhandar” to “register easily at the local desk”. Women rush to get to the front of the line.
Political moves
Local Trinamool Congress MLA and Minister for Industries and Women and Child Development Sashi Panja has been regularly at the camp to ensure that people can register for unemployment benefits without any hassle.
“A lot of people are saying it’s a political move. But we’re not forcing anyone to take it or register. It’s voluntary. We’ve had a huge response so far. Thousands of people are coming to register every day,” says Panja.
Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari described the sight of people queuing for unemployment benefits as a “horrible sight” and said the Trinamool Congress government was not keen on creating jobs.
The BJP leader added that the new Banglar Yuba Sathi will face the same fate as the Yuva Shree scheme launched in 2013 to provide allowances and jobs to 17 lakh applicants. Adhikari said the scheme has effectively been discontinued and no funds have been allocated since the financial year 2017-18.
Yuva Sathi is not the first cash incentive scheme launched by the Trinamool Congress. Five years ago, ahead of the 2021 parliamentary polls, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced the Lakshmir Bhandar scheme.
In the budget presented on 5 February 2026, Ms. Bhattacharya increased the monthly allowance under the scheme by ₹500 per month. Now women from general category will get ₹1,500 per month after the increase and reserved category will get ₹1,700.
Describing the scheme as Chief Minister Banerjee’s brainchild, she said the scheme would cover 2.42 million women, which is almost half of the entire female population of West Bengal. The increase in Lakshmir Bhandar will put an annual burden of ₹ 15,000 crore on the exchequer.
Economist Abhirup Sarkar says economic development has different connotations for different classes of people. “For the poor and underprivileged, this means two meals a day, adequate and clean water supply, painless travel on village roads, electricity, free education, easily accessible cheap health services and, if possible, a house the family can call their own,” he says. These are perceived as development. “If there is an additional transfer of cash, however small, there is a sense of comfort and even empowerment,” Sarkar explains of how social systems work.
Contract police work
Despite the excitement over the new cash stimulus scheme, the 2026-27 budget did not place much emphasis on job creation.
However, Ms. Bhattacharya announced a ₹1,000 hike in the wages of contractual employees. “There are more than 1.25 lakh citizen volunteers, village police and green police in the state who are doing commendable work in helping the police administration. To recognize their contribution, I am happy to propose an increase in their monthly remuneration by ₹ 1,000,” she said.
This raised concerns that the police were planning to increase the contract force. After the rape and murder of a doctor at Kolkata’s RG Kar Hospital and Medical College on 9 August 2024, the accused and later convicted was found to be a civic police volunteer who had easy access to the hospital.
The Supreme Court was angered by such recruitment and on 15 October 2024, while hearing the case, ordered the West Bengal government to get rid of the “source of authority” employed by citizen volunteers like accused Sanjay Roy in the RG Kar rape and murder case, especially in sensitive areas like schools and hospitals.
A bench of the then Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud said that employing political acolytes and sympathizers as “civic volunteers” could be a “nice process of giving political support to people who are completely unverified”.
However, these jobs offer people some livelihood. A civic police volunteer from the state’s Jhargram district (who did not wish to be named) says the ₹10,000 salary he earns at the end of every month will not support their family. When he started working in 2013, he was earning ₹2,800.
“Most citizen volunteers in our district have to do something on the side. We have small plots of land to grow vegetables, otherwise we won’t have the money to put food on our plates with such a small salary,” he adds. He works 27-28 days a month and only gets 14 days of casual leave a year. There is no money to save for medical emergencies or to put aside for retirement or for his children’s higher education.
He is embarrassed that his wife and mother are getting money from Lakshmir Bhandar to run their household. “We are helpless. I am not proud to accept free cash from the government. But what else do we have? While one family member had a government job, the rest of the family lived a normal middle-class life,” he says.
Sanjoy Poria, state president of the West Bengal Civic Police Association (WBCPA) says that in 2013, civic police volunteers led a movement demanding better working conditions, minimum wages, health insurance and recognition as permanent workers. But in 2014 he and many like him faced suspension for allegedly leading “politically motivated” protests against the state. To this day, Poria is still suspended. He now runs his own ambulance service in Paschim Medinipur district of Keshpur area.
“We wrote to all political parties; no one ever came to our aid. As soon as they cracked down on us, the movement died down. Do you see any citizen volunteers demanding better working conditions or better pay? The movement was killed. We were asking for very basic workers’ rights,” adds Poria. Several civic and village police volunteers spoke on condition of anonymity that with agricultural wages falling to ₹300 a day and sometimes less, the only option they had was to move to metropolitan cities in other states for work.
While the involvement of local civic police volunteers has come in handy for the West Bengal government in managing conflicts in areas affected by left-wing extremism, there are frequent reports of civic police volunteers being used by the ruling political party in local elections and illegal activities such as extortion. The involvement of civic police in the February 2022 death of student leader Anish Khan also sparked outrage.
Biswanath Chakraborty, professor of political science at Rabindra Bharati University, says citizen volunteers have given the Trinamool Congress a political base. “There is no proper process for appointing such personnel. This leads to the local Trinamool Congress leadership appointing workers who will be loyal to them,” says Chakraborty.
“A citizen volunteer has no police power,” says former IPS officer Nazrul Islam. It refers to Sanjay Roy, convicted of rape and murder at RG Kar Hospital. Roy had a police motorbike and accommodation, which is not part of the perks of this cadre.
Civil service jobs in West Bengal have hit after the school recruitment scam and the municipal government recruitment scam, which has meant a re-examination and hence job postponement. At a time when people, mostly young people, were queuing up for the cash-for-unemployment scheme, there were protests on the streets of Kolkata demanding permanent jobs.
