Kolkata, July 27: With reports of Bengali-speaking migrant workers allegedly being detained and harassed in several Indian states triggering outrage, the West Bengal government and the ruling TMC have launched a multi-layered initiative to tackle the crisis with a blend of administrative urgency and political outreach.
In what officials and TMC leaders call a “coordinated and calibrated” approach, the government has rolled out a WhatsApp-only helpline, reactivated district-level migrant welfare cells, and empowered grassroots-level TMC task forces across migration-prone districts to serve as first responders and grievance redressal units.
“The approach is two-pronged. On one hand, the government has launched helplines and activated its administrative machinery to contact officials in other states, while on the other, the party has established multi-layered coordination teams, ranging from the grassroots to the district levels. Our workers are constantly in touch with families of migrants, especially in high migration zones,” senior TMC leader and state minister Manas Bhunia said.
The initiative follows incidents of Bengali workers reportedly having faced profiling, detention or forced deportation in recent weeks in states such as Odisha, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, and Chhattisgarh.
The WhatsApp helpline, launched by the West Bengal Police on Friday, enables families of distressed migrants to send text-based complaints containing the victim’s name, work location, and nature of the problem. The state police have urged citizens to widely share the helpline number via social media, terming it a vital tool for timely intervention.
Alongside administrative measures, the TMC has mobilised its party network across Malda, Murshidabad, Uttar Dinajpur, Dakshin Dinajpur, Cooch Behar, Alipurduar, Birbhum, Nadia, North and South 24 Parganas districts, which have high migration rates. Every municipal ward, gram panchayat, and block has been instructed to create migrant tracking cells, run by local party workers, to maintain real-time registers of outbound migrants.
These grassroots units function under the supervision of area leaders, elected panchayat members, and MLAs. (PTI)
