West Bengal govt refused to share Ghatal master plan cost, says Suvendu Adhikari

MIDNAPORE: Leader of the opposition in Bengal assembly Suvendu Adhikari came down heavily on the Trinamool Congress government “for trying to pin the blame” of non-implementation of the Ghatal master plan on the Centre.
“The master plan for flood control in vast stretches of Midnapore, Hooghly and Howrah could not materialise because the state government refused to share expenditure on a 50:50 basis. The state didn’t even acquire land for the project,” Adhikari said here on Friday, while inaugurating a football tournament organised by the Sabuj Sangha Club.
The BJP MLA’s remarks come days after chief minister Mamata Banerjee asked Trinamool MPs from Midnapore and two state ministers — Soumen Mahapatra and Manas Bhunia — to meet the Union irrigation minister in Delhi and secure requisite sanction for the project.
“People had come forward to offer land for the Keleghai-Kapleshwari-Bagui river project because I took the initiative to convince them. This didn’t happen for the Ghatal master plan,” he said.
Adhikari also took a dig at the Trinamool government for “complaining about paucity of funds” to take up the project. “The CM gives Rs 1,200 crore as imam bhata. She gives Rs 700 crore to the clubs. She could have allocated Rs 1,200-1,300 crore from her own resources for the Ghatal master plan,” he said.
On state water resources minister Bhunia’s comment that the Centre didn’t release its own share of funds despite a “technical go-ahead” to the master plan when Uma Bharati was the Union minister, Adhikari said: “There are two parts for sanction of a project. One is technical and the other financial. Let th.e CM and the water resources minister sit together and sort out the issue.”
Kicking off the football tournament, the BJP leader said the programme was organised by the Syama Prasad Mookerjee Memorial Trust. “This is not a copy-paste of the Trinamool programme on the day of the ‘Great Calcutta Killings’ of August 16, 1946,” he added.