A day after West Bengal Chief Minister wrote to Prime Minister asking the Centre to declare the cyclone devastations as national calamity and sought Rs 1000 crore as Central grant, Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee made it clear on Friday that she was against Delhi handing any financial aid directly to the state government.
"The money should go from PM to DM (Prime Minister to District Magistrate), from DM to the Zilla Parishad (ZP), ZP to Panchayat Samity (PS) and from PS to Gram Sabha so as to properly reach the people," Banerjee, who is now in Delhi, told a Bengali TV channel here.
She made the comments in response to references of some proposals during the tenure of Rajiv Gandhi about sending any Central grant from "PM to DM minus CM (bypassing the Chief Minister)".
"I will apprise the PM of the details tomorrow," she said.
Claiming the money for 100 days work under Central NREG had not been properly spent by the Left Front government, Banerjee said, "We have a bitter experience about Delhi handing any financial aid directly to this government."
Describing the conditions at Patharpratima, Namkhana, Gosaba in Aila-hit South 24 Parganas district as very critical with people leaving damaged houses and bodies of human seen floating with animal carcasses, she said the affected people were yet to get any government help.
{{/usCountry}}Describing the conditions at Patharpratima, Namkhana, Gosaba in Aila-hit South 24 Parganas district as very critical with people leaving damaged houses and bodies of human seen floating with animal carcasses, she said the affected people were yet to get any government help.
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