Mamata Banerjee fails to get Centre sops, no assurance on loan waiver demand
New Delhi: In her first meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee raised the question of a loan waiver, but secured no commitment in return. The meeting came against the backdrop of the Trinamul Congress’ acrimonious relations with the NDA, but there appeared to be no breaking of the ice.
While being non-committal on her loan waiver demand, the PM showcased his government’s “Act East” policy and stressed West Bengal’s development was essential to the nation’s growth. The meeting, after Ms Banerjee boycotted the first meeting of the Niti Aayog, was much-awaited given the acrimonious tone of Trinamul MPs in Parliament since the BJP came to power at the Centre.
After Mr Modi had a one-on-one chat with Ms Banerjee for half an hour, the PM and some of his Cabinet colleagues met the CM and a group of TMC MPs at the Parliament library for an hour.
But this meeting had no political agenda, sources said, as both the PM and Ms Banerjee felt political differences should not come in the way of official engagement for development of the state.
Ms Banerjee told the PM that the state was burdened with over Rs 2 lakh crores in debt accumulated during the Left regime.
The West Bengal chief minister reiterated that a debt recast along with a moratorium on interest payment liability were essential for the state government to undertake development works. Mr Modi noted that West Bengal had “inherited high debt burden”. Prime Minister is learnt to have appreciated the financial discipline of West Bengal and assured the Chief Minister that no effort would be left to assist the state to develop. He told the Trinamul MPs that his government was according high priority to the development of eastern states, including West Bengal, Odisha and Bihar along with North-east.
Prime Minister told the MPs that “the 14th Finance Commission has taken into account the interest burden on states and has fully compensated the revenue deficit arising as a result of this”. This is why, West Bengal is getting an additional Revenue Deficit Grant along with only two other non-Special Category States, Mr Modi told the MPs, while adding that “interest burden should not affect development activities any more in future”. He also stated that the Centre has decided to give West Bengal the royalty on coal and other minerals. This will provide a benefit of Rs 1,600 crore to the state annually, while the state would get Rs 11,200 crore from the coal blocks that have been auctioned so far and there would be even more revenue in future.
Ms Banerjee also raised a few of the state specific demands from Union Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu along with release of funds for MGNREGA and ICDS.
“Today, all our party MPs met PM and before that I also met him. We apprised him of West Bengal’s financial situation. We came to power in 2011 and the loan was taken before that. The loan was about Rs 1 lakh crore from RBI. It was not our fault as it was taken by the erstwhile government,” Ms Banerjee said.
