Kolkata: Trinamool and BJP were locked in a war of words on Friday over complaints of alleged irregularities in Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY). While BJP netas said the housing scheme in the state was riddled with corruption, TMC claimed the Bengal govt had started its own scheme with its own funds.
"It is not merely the opposition but Trinamool workers have been alleging anomalies in the housing scheme. The central govt stopped funds in some schemes only after widespread corruption was noticed," Bengal BJP spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said.
The central govt stopped funding for Awas Yojana in Nov 2022. Bhattacharya pointed to a case in Katwa's Jagadanandapur, where a non-existent person was allotted a house five times. "Such examples are rampant in each of the panchayats," he said.
BJP alleged that in Bangla Awas Yojana, the state govt surveyed 18.3 lakh households, from which 22.7% were rejected. "This high rate of rejection shows how many false applications were filed. This is exactly what the central teams said about PMAY," BJP's state general secretary Jagannath Chattopadhyay said.
Trinamool's former Rajya Sabha MP Kunal Ghosh said there could be technical errors in some places but the allegations were politically motivated. "Centre stopped funding for the housing scheme. The state intervened only after that and the CM announced the creation of 11 lakh households. It is being funded entirely by state govt. The checks and cross-checks are going on. BJP initially tried to stop work by not releasing funds. Now, when it has backfired on them, they are trying to pick up stray cases and make an issue out of those," Ghosh said.
No trace of beneficiary in Katwa
One Sudeshna Roy's name appeared in the list of rural housing scheme beneficiaries from Katwa. While the woman could not be traced, the block development officer said that such names will be deleted if the allegations were true. Local Trinamool functionary Gautam Ghoshal said that the name did not exist. Such names were being identified, Ghoshal said.