West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday launched a new welfare scheme to provide a monthly allowance of Rs 5,000 to Bengali migrant workers returning from other states for one year or until they find new jobs.

The “Shramashree” scheme was launched amid allegations by the Trinamool Congress that Bengali-speaking workers are being discriminated against in states ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party on the suspicion of being Bangladeshis.

The beneficiaries “who are coming back after being helplessly tortured” will also be given a one-time travel and rehabilitation grant of Rs 5,000.

Speaking after a Cabinet meeting on Monday, Banerjee said the scheme also includes enrolment in existing state welfare programmes such as Khadya Sathi, which covers food security, and Swasthya Sathi, which provides healthcare coverage.

The children of the migrant workers will be enrolled in government schools and persons without homes will be provided accommodation in community kitchen centres, the Trinamool Congress chief added.

The labour department will be the nodal agency for the scheme, with the workers returning to the state being required to register on the Shramashree portal, through which they will also be issued identity cards, The New Indian Express reported.

Banerjee stated that around 22.4 lakh Bengali migrant workers outside the state will be eligible for the scheme.

The chief minister said that people were “being labelled as a criminal” for speaking Bengali.

“Someone is being pushed to Bangladesh, somewhere he is being put in jail,” she said. “Somewhere he is being taken to the police station and harassed.”

She claimed that about 2,700 families had returned to West Bengal in recent days after being “tortured”, The New Indian Express reported.

Opposition leader Suvendu Adhikari criticised the scheme, saying that a payment of Rs 5,000 “will not do anything” for the workers, NDTV reported. “Every migrant worker earns Rs 50,000 to Rs 1.5 lakh,” he said.

“They are happy in Gujarat, happy in Maharashtra, happy in Delhi, happy in Haryana, happy in South India,” the BJP leader added. “They will not come to Bengal for Rs 5,000.”

Since the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack, the police in several states ruled by the BJP have been detaining Bengali-speaking persons – mostly Muslims – and asking them to prove that they are Indian citizens.

Several persons have been forced into Bangladesh after they allegedly could not prove their Indian citizenship. In some cases, persons who were mistakenly sent to Bangladesh returned to the country after state authorities in India proved that they were Indians.

The matter is being heard by the Supreme Court on a petition filed by the West Bengal Migrant Workers Welfare Board.

The petition highlights that a letter was issued by the Union home ministry in May that directed states and Union Territories to verify the credentials of persons suspected to be undocumented migrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar.

The direction was being “misused” by several states to target and detain Bengali migrant workers because of their religion or because they converse in Bengali, the petition claimed.

The Supreme Court has sought responses from the Centre and the governments of Odisha, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Delhi, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Haryana and West Bengal in the matter.

In July, non-governmental organisation Human Rights Watch said that India should stop unlawfully deporting people to Bangladesh without due process. The government should instead “ensure everyone’s access to procedural safeguards to protect against arbitrary detention and expulsion”, the organisation added.

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