Tag: centre

WB CM slams Centre for not releasing funds

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Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday criticised the BJP government at the Centre for not releasing funds for central schemes such as the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan and the Backward Regions Grant Fund (BRGF). She was in Nadia’s Tehatta to inaugurate several projects, mainly for the district.

“We’ll continue providing funds for the ICDS programme. We have been paying off the interest for the Central government loans taken by the CPI(M) during its tenure. We have to pay Rs 28,000 crore only as interest for the same. Otherwise, we would have funded all Central programmes,” the chief minister said.

She came to Tehatta on Monday and inaugurated several projects while laying the foundation stone of others.

While criticising the BJP government, she did not spare the CPI(M) either, blaming them for the loans taken by them towards the end of their 34-year rule.

“When we start development projects, we complete them. In this way, we keep our promises,” she said.

Blaming the Centre, she said that the Centre is supposed to bear 90% of the cost of ICDS while the state’s share is 10%. “Yet, the Central government has stopped releasing funds for ICDS. What will happen to the kids? So, we’ll continue funding the scheme,” Mamata Banerjee said.

She added that her government would distribute 1,75,000 cycles in Nadia for boys and girls studying in classes 9 to 12 under the Sabuj Sathi scheme.

“Out of 1,75,00 cycles, we are handing over 5,000 today (Monday) and the remaining would be given soon. We have already announced that we will distribute 40 lakh cycles in the state but right now only 25 lakh are available due to lack of production. We hope to hand over all the cycles by January, 2016,” the chief minister said.

She also said that her government has increased the remuneration of civic volunteers and Asha workers. Highlighting her government’s achievements, she described the list of development projects in the district.

Trinamool wants Parliament to function: Sudip Bandopadhyay

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Ahead of the Winter Session this week, Trinamool Congress on Saturday said it does not favour disrupting of Parliament proceedings and will raise issues of intolerance, communal harmony and strengthening of federal structure in the House.

“The strategy of our party is yet to be decided. It will be decided after discussions with our party chief Mamata Banerjee. But yes, we want the Parliament to function properly. We don’t want any disruption of the house,” TMC Parliamentary Party leader in Lok Sabha Sudip Bandopadhyay said.

“If Parliament functions smoothly, we will be able to raise the burning issues of the country such as price rise, intolerance, threat to secularism and others. We can make the government answerable for these issues,” he said.

Sudip Bandopadhyay said, “The issue of intolerance and threat to communal harmony will top our agenda.”

“Never before has India gone through such an intolerant atmosphere. We want to raise this issue of intolerance in the Parliament. We have always spoken in favour of strengthening communal harmony of our country. In the present situation the communal harmony too is under threat,” he added.

The MP also lashed out at the Centre for interfering in the federal structure of the country.

“We have always spoken in favour of strengthening the federal structure and for more powers to the states. But under the present regime at the centre, the Prime Minister is calling up chief secretaries of the state bypassing the chief ministers.

“Is this the way you protect the federal structure, which is the basis of our country? We all need to strengthen the federal structure,” he added.

Mamata’s Bihar visit a protest against authoritarian attitude of Centre: Trinamool

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Stating that the party would fight to “strengthen the federal structure” in the country, TMC on Thursday said that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s attendance at the oath-taking ceremony of Nitish Kumar on Friday would be as a mark of “protest against authoritarian attitude of the Centre”.

“Our chief minister is going there (Bihar) to fight against intolerance and mark her protest against the authoritarian attitude of the Centre.

“Trinamool Congress will fight in favour of strengthening the federal structure and secular fabric of our country,” said party leader and state urban development minister Firhad Hakim.

Mamata Banerjee on Thursday left for Patna to take take part in Kumar’s swearing-in on Friday. She had congratulated Nitish Kumar over Twitter and termed the victory of the grand alliance as the defeat of “intolerance”.

Nitish Kumar, the JD(U) leader and the Bihar Chief Minister designate, and Mamata Banerjee had spoken over the phone after the Bihar Assembly elections results were announced with the former thanking the TMC chief for supporting the grand alliance in Bihar in its fight against BJP.

WB CM slams Centre for not releasing funds for Bengal

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Mamata Banerjee once again slammed the Central government for not releasing funds for 37 schemes which was creating much hardship for the Bengal government and at the same time asked officials to complete all projects within three months.

WB CM was speaking to the media after a meeting with the senior bureaucrats at Town Hall and thanked them for their service to make the recent festival a major success.

She asked officials to go for an overdrive for completion of the projects for which the foundation stones had been laid. She warned if the declared projects were not started it should be started immediately.

The Chief Minister had slammed the Centre’s decision to withdraw funding for projects like ICDS, SSA, BRGF.

The CM said that the state government was performing better than the Centre and hit out at the Centre for not releasing any funds for the flood affected districts of Bengal.

Centre running parallel govt through governors: Mamata Banerjee

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Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Wednesday accused the Centre of running a parallel government in states through governors, and creating a communal charged atmosphere.

At a chief ministers’ conclave on cooperative federalism organised by the Delhi government, she said, “They are using the governor to run a parallel government and scuttle the work of elected chief ministers. I can understand that law and order in Delhi is under the home ministry, but how can the West Bengal Governor write to the Centre seeking central forces for municipal elections there?”

“People from the BJP are threatening us with arrest, saying the Election Commission is under them. The Prime Minister should look into this. One cannot bulldoze states in the name of governance,” she added.

“They (Centre) are making things communal, looking at the religion of people killed in accidents to vitiate the atmosphere. If two people die in West Bengal, the NIA is rushed to the state, but when 100 people died in Madhya Pradesh not a word is said because it has a BJP government. This is not good governance,” Mamata Banerjee said.

She advised the Centre to restrict itself to making policies and administering sectors such as defence and railways and “nothing else”. She also slammed the Centre for disbanding the Planning Commission, which she said was the brain child of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.

“The government is running without any planning. They have also disbanded the National Development Council where the CMs used to get a common platform. You have formed NITI Aayog and made your own man its chairman…it’s not about our ideological differences but we are having issues in functioning,” she said.

WB CM slams Centre for not releasing funds for the poor

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The Union Government’s decision to bring down the budget of several social sector schemes will be disastrous, chief minister Mamata Banerjee said on Monday at Nabanna.

She said that the Union Government has cut the budget of around 36 important social sector schemes including Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), ICDS project, Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, JnNURM projects, development project for Left Wing Extremist (LWE) areas, backward region grant fund (BRGF) scheme during last budget.

“Even no fund for midday meal schemes has been allotted by current government. The Union Government claimed that it has increased fund by 10 percent for each state government but all developmental projects have been affected for cutting the budget of the social sectors,” she said adding that has also written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi regarding this matter.

While she praised the ‘Digital India’ campaign, she also said the initiative to launch railway broadband optical fibre network was taken by her in 2001. “I had taken the initiative for this as Railway Minister in 2001. After that it did not progress. It is good that this initiative is being taken now. I welcome the Digital India initiative. Nobody is opposing the concept. But the initiative should begin from the grassroots level,” she said.

“We want a stronger federal structure. The Planning Commission and some other such bodies were abolished by the Union Government,” the CM said and added that real upliftment of the country should be the upliftment of poor people.

“Social economic upliftment must be prioritised. Poor people should not be deprived,” the Chief Minister said.

Trinamool raises Cyclone Komen issue in RS, demands Central aid for affected people

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Trinamool Congress raised the issue of getting immediate relief from Centre for flood-affected people in Bengal in the Rajya Sabha during Zero Hour.

Speaking on the issue, MP Vivek Gupta said that the West Bengal Chief Minister has stated that the total damages have been estimated at Rs 30000 crore due to the floods, but yet Bengal has got no response from the Central Government.

He pointed out that 12 districts have been affected, 100 people have died and lost their lives, yet the Central Government has not responded till now.

Trinamool urged the Central Government to provide immediate relief to the people of West Bengal.

Click here for the full transcript.

Poor people are the backbone of the country: WB CM

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West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee called for better coordination between states and the Centre for overall development of the states and the country.

“If the states and the Centre work together in coordination, it will help in the overall development of the masses,” Ms Banerjee said at a function at Nazrul Mancha in Kolkata.

She also urged the Centre to ensure that at least every panchayat in the country is covered by banking services.

“After I came to power in 2011 more than 1,000 panchayats out of 3,500 in the state did not have banks. Then we offered one rupee rent to banks and asked them to open branches. We have been able to open 171 banks out of the 1,000 left. I would request the Centre to see that at least every panchayat is covered by banking services so that it helps the poor,” she said.

Citing the achievements of the TMC government in the empowerment of girls, WB CM spoke about the success of the ‘Kanyashree’ project which has covered 24 lakh girl child in the state. She said while Centre allocated only Rs 100 crore for Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, Bengal had allocated Rs 1000 crore for Kanyashree scheme.

This is a Govt of headline management not fiscal management: Derek

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Leader of the All India Trinamool Congress Parliamentary Party in Rajya Sabha, Derek O’Brien today slammed the Centre by calling it a government that focuses on headline management rather than fiscal management.

Criticising the government for taking several schemes like BRGF, Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, mid-day meal scheme, ICDS, modernisation of police forces among others out of central funding, Derek asked the Centre to follow operative federalism instead of cooperative federalism.

He also called the bluff of the Centre on its claims of greater devolution to States. He said there was only a meagre increase from 61.88 paise to the rupee to 62 paise to the rupee. He slammed the government for the huge reduction in social sector budget.

Talking about the Centre’s much-publicised flagship scheme Jan Dhan Yojana, he asked the Finance Minister how many bank accounts have even Re 1 as balance. He criticised him for no mention of electoral reforms either in the Budget or the President’s Address.

Derek O’Brien concluded his speech by quipping two lines in Hindi:

Phool aur poude se hai maali ka kaam,

Jo kaante se darr jaye woh hoga nakaam.

 

Click here for the full transcript of his speech

Bengal Govt forms 5-member advisory panel for consumer protection

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The West Bengal Government is forming a five-member advisory committee for consumer protection with fresh terms of reference that would include new areas like e-commerce and medicines.

Sadhan Pande, West Bengal Minister of Consumer Affairs, said on Saturday that the proposed panel would have expert representative from IIM Calcutta and IIT Kharagpur.

At a FICCI-organised function on the eve of World Consumer Rights Day, the Minister said the advisory panel would help the government in reformulation of guidelines for consumer protection.

The Centre has already prepared draft amendments to Consumer Protection Act of 1986. “However, since the consumers protection issues are part of the State subjects, the State Government has taken a proactive step for the forthcoming changes in the legal framework,” he said.

The Minister also mentioned that State has planned to file a special leave petition before the Supreme Court seeking direction on civil court’s interference in consumer courts’ justice delivery.

The State Government would also implement “right to public services” through the department. The State Consumers Affairs Department was in the process of setting up a ‘commission’ for redressal of grievances regarding public services rendered by the different government departments as well as civic bodies.