Kolkata, July 08: Just a day after he allocated Rs 1,000 crore for relief and rehabilitation of Cyclone Aila victims in his Budget, Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday released Rs 478 crore from the National Calamity Fund as first installment to the state and promised to release the more soon.
Mukherjee has also released Rs 1,000 crore of the Rs 10,000 crore demanded by the state government for building concrete embankments in the Sunderbans. He called up state Finance Minister Asim Dasgupta today and requested him to visit Delhi and discuss how to raise the remaining Rs 9, 000 crore for building embankments.
“We are very happy at the approach of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Home Minister P Chidambaram and Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee to West Bengal. Mukherjee called me up and we discussed matters related to the state,” Dasgupta said.
After the cyclone devastated a large area of West Bengal, the state government demanded that the Centre declare it a national calamity and also demanded Rs 1,000 crore for relief and rehabilitation work. It requested the Centre to send a team of Central government officers to visit at the affected areas, a request promptly complied with by the Centre.
Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee had already objected to the grant of Rs 1,000 crore to the state saying the money would be squandered away by the Marxists.
She suggested that the Central government disburse aid directly to the district magistrates who can distribute the money through panchayats. But the state had rejected the idea terming it as unconstitutional and against norms of a federal government.
–Agencies