Snehashish Roy, New Delhi
Dec 18, 2024 01:41 AM IST
Sitharaman said funds were redirected to party workers instead of reaching beneficiaries, adding that misappropriation was confirmed during an investigation.
The Lok Sabha witnessed a brief confrontation between Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay during he discussion on the first batch of supplementary demands for grants over the alleged withholding of funds under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY).
“As long as you will do this (withhold central funds), your purpose to establish your party’s influence in the state will never happen,” the TMC member said.
In response, Sitharaman said that the funds were being redirected to party workers instead of reaching the intended beneficiaries, adding that misappropriation had been confirmed during an investigation. “We are allowing you to fix it and yet you are resorting to political rhetoric.”
The central government has stopped releasing funds under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) to West Bengal after it found large-scale irregularities in executing the flagship programme by the state. The release of funds to West Bengal was stopped under Section 27 of the Act over non-compliance of directives by the central government. ₹6,913 crore is due under MGNREGA since FY 2021-22, according to the West Bengal government.
The Union government stopped releasing funds to the state after allegations of massive irregularities were reported in 2022. This prompted the state government to launch Banglar Bari with its own funds. The state government announced on Tuesday that it would provide funds to 2.8 million families in rural areas to build houses before 2026, when the state assembly elections are due.
Sitharaman noted that since 2016-17, the government has disbursed ₹25,798 crore for the PMAY-Grameen in West Bengal. However, she mentioned that there have been complaints of irregularities in the scheme’s implementation, including the selection of ineligible households , the removal of eligible households, and the renaming of the scheme to Bangla Awas Yojana. She stated that complaints of fund misappropriation under the MGNREGA have been validated by investigations conducted by both central and state teams.
Bandyopadhyay proposed that the pending funds for West Bengal be released, excluding specific regions within the state where complaints of misappropriation were reported. “How am I supposed to make that decision?” the minister responded. She added that the Centre had urged the state government to reclaim the funds after following due process, but the state had instead released funds from its own treasury.
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