More funds for West Bengal, but little to show for it

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s antics may have brought in higher central funds for the state, but her government’s performance has been below par in its first year. Chetan Chauhan reports. No progress

Updated on: Apr 9, 2012, 09:35:01 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s antics may have brought in higher central funds for the state, but her government’s performance has been below par in its first year.

File-Photo-of--West-Bengal-chief-minister-Mamata-Banerjee-and-Trinamool-leader-Mukul-Roy-in-New-Delhi-PTI-Photo

A note prepared by the Planning Commission pointed out that the West Bengal government has been able to achieve just 6.5% of its target in agriculture, and provided only 14 days of work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) — the lowest among the poorer states of India.

The panel also noted that the overall economic growth also slowed down to around 8% in the state after Banerjee took over from the Left Front government.

Banerjee’s tirade against the Left, blaming it for its poor state of affairs, resulted in the central government allocating Rs 22,124 crore in 2011-12, an increase of about 20% as compared to the previous year.

The Centre also gave another Rs 3,500 crore as a special package after Banerjee met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh earlier this year.

However, the panel’s report on the state’s performance in 2011-12 has shown that the higher allocation may not have translated into action at the ground level.

According to it, the Performance of Central flagship schemes such as Indira Awas Yojana, National Rural Health Mission, mid-day meal scheme and Sarva Siksha Abhiyan has been less than 50%.

“It is primarily because of the weak institutional mechanism at the block level to implement the schemes,” a Planning Commission functionary said.

The panel has expressed surprise that even though the state’s wheat and pulses production recorded the lowest production in the last six years, the amount of work provided under MGNREGA has also been minimal.

“Logically, if agriculture production is low, the demand for work under MGNREGA becomes higher. In West Bengal, both have recorded a low output,” an official said.

The state, however, has done well in implementing the road sector scheme, Pradhan Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojana, and the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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