Kolkata, March 13 -- State Panchayats and Rural Development (P&RD) Minister Pradip Mazumdar criticised the BJP-led Central government on Thursday for failing to release its share of funds for rural development in Bengal.
He described this decision as political vendetta, claiming it was a response to the BJP's significant defeat in the 2021 Assembly election in the state.
"I am astonished at the fact that after Bengal emerged as the best in the country in 100 days work for the years 2015-16, 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20 not only in terms of mandays creation but also due to convergence in livelihood augmentation the disbursement of funds for 100 days work was stopped soon after their defeat
in the 2021 polls.
On December 15, 2022, it was communicated that our government has submitted utilisation certificate and other relevant documents and the centre has no inhibition in release of funds, but still the deprivation has been continuing," Majumdar said in his Budget speech for the financial year 2025-26 in the state Assembly. The state has proposed Rs 4746.40 crore towards non-wage component for the 2025-26 fiscal on the basis of creation of 33 crore mandays. According to Mazumdar, in case of Awas Yojana, on March 24, 2022, the Centre informed the state that no utilisation certificate is pending and all documents have been received, but still not a single penny
has been released.
The state through its own funds has given the first installment of Rs 60,000 to 12 lakh beneficiaries for construction of their houses under
Awas Yojana. It may be mentioned that the report on the 'Status of Devolution to Panchayats in India - 2024', prepared by the Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA) has categorised Bengal as 'highly performing'.
Based on the weighted aggregation of six dimensional sub-indices, the composite devolution index (DI) computes Bengal's score to 56.52 which is much higher than the national average of 43.89. A total amount of Rs 44128. 68 crore as proposed by Majumdar for 2025-26 fiscal was approved in the
House on Thursday.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.