State spent 7 times more than Centre for Bengal's dev: Min

Kolkata: Accusing the Union Home Minister Amit Shah of misinforming the people over the Centre's financial contribution for Bengal's development, senior Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader and state Finance Minister Amit Mitra said that the Mamata Banerjee government has spent seven times more than that of the "Modi government" in the past six years for the state's overall development.

He also took a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his statement proposing state budget in parity with that of the Centre demanding re-establishment of Planning Commission instead of the "toothless" Niti Aayog that only "acts as a think tank like that of America's National Bureau of

Economics".

"It is a blatant lie of Amit Shah that Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave—as if it is his own money—Rs 3.59 lakh crore for development of Bengal. I am putting forward the actual figures and throwing a challenge before Shah to come for a face to face debate on the same on any platform,"

Mitra added that the Centre has so far "actually" given only Rs 1.13 lakh crore from 2014-15 fiscal to 2019-20 financial year for "Central schemes"

and "centrally sponsored schemes".

This comes when the Bengal government led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has spent Rs 3.20 lakh crore in its own capacity for different state-run projects and schemes in these six years.

Again, Rs 4.14 lakh crore was spent in the same time period to give salary, pension and other government expenses.

"In total Rs 7.3 lakh crore was spent for development of the state, which is seven times that the Centre has actually spent in Bengal for Central schemes and centrally sponsored schemes," Mitra said in a virtual Press conference in which Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Derek O'Brien was also present.

"It shows that Shah's claim is nothing but a blatant lie that has been propagated out of political vendetta and it was politically motivated. He is the right person to say from he got such figures and as far as I know he looks after matters related to police and all as he is now the country's Home Minister and earlier he served as the Home Minister of Gujarat," Mitra said.

While reacting over Shah's claim, Mitra further said that the Centre takes away on an average around Rs 75,000 crore per year as direct and indirect tax from Bengal. "It shows that they have collected at least Rs 6 lakh crore from the state since they came to power in 2014 and in return the actual investment through central schemes and centrally sponsored schemes was Rs 1.13 lakh crore. This shows how the state has been deprived when still the Centre owes nearly Rs 77,000 crore to the state," Mitra said.