Centre not helping Bengal at all: Mamata Banerjee

Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today accused the Centre of not helping her government at all to overcome its financial crisis. “The biggest hurdle being faced by us is that the UPA government, which we are supporting, has not at all helped us though we have been repeatedly telling them for the last one year and despite giving a commitment before the assembly elections,” Banerjee told PTI at the Writers Building. [caption id=“attachment_310309” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“AFP”]  [/caption] “We are waiting … eagerly waiting to get a reply from the Centre,” Banerjee who had met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on 4th May and sought a three-year moratorium on central loan interest repayment, said. While accusing the Centre of not helping her government financially, she said “the Centre directly or indirectly helped the previous Left Front government a lot. I am not against that. You can help all state governments. “But why did they allow the Left Front government to borrow funds? Without their permission, they could not have done so. It is their (Centre’s) fault also,” she said. Questioning why the Centre did not force the ersthwhile Left front government to introduce Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management, the chief minister said “at that time you did not raise this (FRBM) issue. We are annually paying interest of Rs 21,000 crore while our income is Rs 22,000 crore,” she said. West Bengal has a debt burden of over Rs 2 lakh crore. PTI