District administration sources said that the first phase of cycles have reached all the BDO offices and BDOs have been instructed to begin distribution of cycles within a week. Next week the second lot of cycles would arrive at the BDO offices.
Bid to produce cycles was given in January itself and by the third week of February delivery of cycles to the districts had begun. State backward classes welfare minister Rajib Banerjee said that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had decided to distribute cycles under the Sabuj Sathi scheme and so far several lakhs of students have received cycles.
By March-end we will distribute an additional four lakh cycles among students across the state. The process for that has already begun. All the district administrations have been alerted regarding the quick expedition of the projec,he said.
Sources at the department said that South 24 Parganas district has the maximum number of beneficiaries this time. The district will receive 40,000 cycles followed by North 24 Parganas (35,000), Murshidabad (27,000), West Midnapore (25,000), Malda (22,000), Purulia (21,000), Bankura, Birbhum and East Midnapore will get 21,000 each, East Burdwan (16,000), Alipurduar, Cooch Behar, South Dinajpore, Howrah, Hooghly Jalpaiguri to get 15,000 cycles each,North Dinajpore (14,000), Jhargram, West Burdwan to get 12,000 each and Siliguri will get 4,000 cycles. The number of cycles have been decided keeping in mind the communication facility of districts.
District administration sources said that they had been instructed to finish off distribution of cycles by mid-March. BDO offices have already received a list of names of girl students who would receive the cycles.