Bengal gets lowest sanctioned sum from Centre to battle Covid
Kolkata: The step-motherly attitude of the Centre towards Bengal comes to the fore once again with the state getting the lowest sanctioned amount to battle the pandemic.
Despite repeated pleas of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to the Centre to provide a special package to the states, Bengal has been so far provided with a meagre Rs 125.67 crore when it has alone spent Rs 2,500 crore to fight COVID-19.
Banerjee had even urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a video conference to provide financial assistance to the states in such a situation when the revenue generation has nosedived due to the lockdown. But the appeals have gone unheard as the state government is yet to get any further communication in this connection.
The state has received Rs 125.67 crore in two phases to develop health infrastructure under the National Health Mission scheme. In the first phase, the Centre had provided Rs 44.53 crore and in the second, the amount was Rs 81.14 crore. The sum is least among the states including Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Telangana, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Interestingly, Kerala has been provided with Rs 293.59 crore despite a lower number of Covid cases compared to others. However, the Centre is yet to provide any assistance separately for Covid.
With no assistance by the Centre, the Bengal government has set up the West Bengal State Emergency Relief Fund in which people from all walks of life have contributed. Even the state government has honoured the contribution of Rs 50 by people in the fund that is being used to fight the pandemic.
Around Rs 150 crore was collected in the fund and interestingly it is Rs 25 crore more than the Centre's contribution when Bengal alone took the exceptional step to provide free treatment at dedicated private Covid hospitals and has borne the entire cost to engage Shramik trains to bring back migrant labourers from different parts of the country. The state's spending to develop infrastructure including setting up of 87 dedicated Covid hospitals and 200 'safe homes' is 20 times more than that of the Centre's assistance. Also, utilising people's contribution in the emergency fund, more than 31 lakh PPE kits, 17 lakh N-95 masks and 2.5 lakh litre sanitisers were procured by the state government.
