KRISHNAGAR:
Bengal became the first state to opt out of the
National Health Protection Scheme unveiled in the
Union Budget, with CM
Mamata Banerjee announcing on Tuesday the state will not “waste” its hard-earned resources to contribute its share to the programme.
“The Centre has drawn up a health plan in which 40% of the fund has to come from states. But why should the state spend on another programme when it already has its own? A state will have its own scheme if it has the resources,” the CM said while addressing a public meeting in Krishnanagar.
Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant has pegged the expenses for the Centre’s health plan at Rs 5,500-6,000 crore a year. The Centre has made a provisional allocation of Rs 2,000 crore and wants states to bear the rest. Mamata said her government has made hospitalisation and treatment free in Bengal.
“We have done it even after the Centre takes away Rs 48,000 crore a year for debt-servicing the loan liability left behind by the preceding CPM government,” she added. She pointed out that the Bengal government had already enrolled 50 lakh people under its own Swasthya Sathi programme.
The CM also referred to the “paltry” allocation for PM Modi’s
Beti Bachao project. “The Centre has floated Beti Bachao with a paltry allocation of Rs 100 crore for the entire country; Bengal has provided for Rs 5,000 crore for its own Kanyashree project,” she said. Criticising the Centre on the Financial
Resolution and Deposit Insurance (FRDI) Bill, she said, “The Centre has now come up with an FRDI Bill that allows banks to take away a portion of your fixed deposits. We have asked them to withdraw this bill. This will lead people away from banks at a time when we are asking depositors against parking their hard-earned money in chit funds.”
“They took away homemakers’ lakshmir bhanr (piggy banks) during demonetisation, brought everyone under GST and dealt a blow to small traders and businessmen. Now they are eying fixed deposits,” she said. The CM also ticked off the Centre for touting its pro-farmer policies when “as many as 12,000 farmers committed suicide all over India”.
“The highest death toll comes from BJP-ruled Maharashtra,” she said, announcing her alternative Bengal model. “Our government has waived land rent for farmers. We also gave Rs 1200 crore as relief to about 30 lakh farmers’ families when their crops were damaged by unseasonal rain. We have also hiked the monthly pension for aged farmers by Rs 250 a month,” the CM said, appealing to people to elect TMC candidates in the coming panchayat polls.
