West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has sent two letters to the Centre expressing her government’s willingness to implement the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi Scheme and the Ayushman Bharat schemes provided the funds are routed through the State. The Trinamool Congress government has been under constant criticism from the BJP leadership over the non-implementation of the Central schemes.
Letters written by the Chief Minister addressed to Minister of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare Narendra Singh Tomar and Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on September 9 were made public on Tuesday. They were made public on the Twitter page of Egiye Bangla — the digital interface of the government.
Earlier in the day, Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar in a letter to Ms. Banerjee raised the issue of the non-implementation of the PM Kisan. “Why deny @MamataOfficial the benefit of ₹8,400 crore to lac WB farmers by failure to participate in PM Kisan Nidhi. So far every farmer has lost ₹12,000 that would have come to his bank account. Urge CM – crocodile tears will not relieve pain of farmers,” he tweeted.
In the letter to Mr. Tomar, Ms. Banerjee said the State government has introduced the Krishak Bandhu scheme to provide financial assistance to farmers
“Every farmer/sharecropper receives ₹5,000 from the government. The scheme envisages a death benefit of ₹2 lakh. More than 73 lakh farmers are being covered under it.”
Similarly in the letter addressed to Harsh Vardhan, Ms. Banerjee said the State government had introduced 100% free treatment, medicines and diagnostics for everyone in all government hospitals. She mentioned the Swasthya Sathi scheme that provides 100% free treatment, medicines and diagnostics to all in the government hospitals.