Pranab says Bengal will get financial help

Even as West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee is upset over the delay in a bailout package from the Centre, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said the state will be helped to overcome its financial woes.

Even as West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee is upset over the delay in a bailout package from the Centre, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said the state will be helped to overcome its financial woes.

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"Bengal requires financial assistance. But I can't tell you the details of the plan as we are still working on it," he said.

Sources in the ministry told HT that the minister held a long meeting with expenditure secretary Sumit Bose on Sunday, hours after Banerjee's emissary Sudip Bandopadhyay met PM Manmohan Singh and sought his intervention to resolve the logjam. Singh and Mukherjee also discussed the issue.

"I completely understand Banerjee is a victim of the legacy. There are three major problems of the state. One, the tax-GDP ratio is the lowest in the country. Two, it remained heavily dependent on small savings and three, low tax-GDP ration has resulted in more borrowing and higher debt service," said Mukherjee on Monday.

He also denied that he had said the Centre can't give money to a state in Tughlaqi fashion—a reported comment that sparked outrage in the Trinamool camp.