Bengal got no assistance from Centre on COVID management: TMC
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Bengal got no assistance from Centre on COVID management: TMC


The Trinamool Congress onSaturday claimed that the Mamata Banerjee administration hasso far spent Rs 4,000 crore on COVID-19 management in WestBengal and has not received any assistance from the BJP-ledNDA government at the Centre to deal with the pandemicsituation.

State Women and Child Development and Social WelfareMinister Shashi Panja said that starting from scratch, theWest Bengal government has expeditiously built the necessaryinfrastructure to tackle the pandemic.

“With no assistance from the Centre, the MamataBanerjee government has spent Rs 4,000 crore to tackle theCOVID-19 pandemic in the state.

“It has spent Rs 1,200 crore before June and theremaining Rs 2,800 crore after that,” she told reporters atthe TMC headquarters here.

The state had faced the double disaster of COVID-19and super cyclone Amphan, in which losses amounted to Rs 1.02lakh crore, Panja said.

“The West Bengal government has spent Rs 6,500 crorein providing relief and rebuilding infrastructure affected bythe super cyclone,” she said.

Alleging that the Centre has not provided any reliefto the state, Panja said that the BJP-led NDA government hasdenied West Bengal of its legitimate dues.

She claimed that the Union government has not yet paidRs 50,000 crore dues to West Bengal, of which Rs 36,000 croreis for co-funded schemes of the state and the Centre, whileholding that the TMC government has ensured that no projectsuffered because of this.

“The state is also yet to receive Rs 11,000 croreunder devolution of funds as its share from various taxesraised from the state,” she said, adding that another Rs 3,000crore is due from the central government on food subsidy andsome other heads.

The minister claimed that apart from the Rs 50,000crore, the West Bengal government is yet to receive Rs 7,750crore on account of GST compensation dues.

She claimed that the state is also yet to receive Rs6,787 crore through the Centres borrowing scheme.

The minister said that the BJP is losing its politicalallies and is getting itself “new allies” in the centralinvestigation agencies to browbeat political opponents.

“The BJP is losing allies, with Shiv Sena andShiromani Akali Dal having left and JD(U) also likely to leavethe NDA. It has got new allies in CBI, ED and Income TaxDepartment,” Panja said.

The TMC leader alleged that BJP MP Arjun Singh has notgiven full information to the Election Commission while filinghis nomination for the Lok Sabha elections.

She claimed that Singh, a former MLA of the TMC whojoined the BJP before the 2019 general elections, has notdeclared in full about his financial assets and relations inhis declaration to the Election Commission.


(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Federal staff and is auto-published from a syndicated feed.)

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