WB Received Rs 70,000 Cr from Centre Since BJP Took Office: Swapan Dasgupta

Kolkata, Jul 25: West Bengal received Rs 70,000 crore from the Centre since the BJP came to power in May, saving the state from going bankrupt, said Finance Minister Swapan Dasgupta in the Assembly on Saturday. Highlighting that the previous government had left the state groaning under a debt of more than Rs 8 lakh crore, he said that without the Central funding, many welfare schemes in West Bengal would have shut down. Addressing the House during a discussion on the Appropriation Bill presented in the Assembly, Dasgupta said Rs 70,000 crore has been received by the current government from the Centre, without which West Bengal would have gone “bankrupt”. The Bill, authorising expenditure by the state government from its consolidated fund, was passed in the assembly on Saturday. During discussion on the bill, he said the BJP government in the state will have to make several additional provisions, including one about an arbitration award in favour of Tata Motors over a dispute concerning land allotted for setting up a car manufacturing unit. The award is under challenge by the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) before the Calcutta High Court. Tata Motors left Singur to set up the Nano car plant in Gujarat’s Sanand in October 2008, following a prolonged anti-land acquisition agitation led by the then opposition leader Mamata Banerjee. The finance minister said the previous government had broken budgetary discipline over the years. “This is the Appropriation Bill, not a misappropriation bill, which had become the trend in the state previously,” Dasgupta said in response to a query by TMC MLA Sabina Yasmin about ensuring funds are not misused. Pointing to former minister and veteran TMC legislator Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay’s assertion that West Bengal under the Mamata Banerjee government had secured top-tier rankings in various parameters, including investment in heavy industries and panchayati raj and law and order, Dasgupta said these are decided by the Central government based on data and provided by the state. He said if it is assumed that the data were correct, then West Bengal would have surpassed many states. Though the previous government claimed there were 93 lakh MSMEs in West Bengal, it was found that only 99,000 medium and small-scale enterprises are functional in the state, Dasgupta said.