The railways plan to provide free one-room flats to homeless squatters living next to railway tracks, railway minister Mamata Banerjee announced here Sunday. While the minister claimed this rehabilitation scheme will be for the entire country, political observers here believe this is targeted only at next year’s Assembly polls in West Bengal, in which Ms Banerjee, Trinamul Congress president, is determined to defeat the ruling Left Front.
“We have taken a policy decision at the Railway Board to implement this ‘Sukhi Griha Project’. We will first do a pilot project... and later implement it across India,” she said.