West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday held a meeting with senior government officials asking them to curtail expenditure in various departments.
At a press conference after the meeting, the chief minister said that the government money was meant to be spent on people, it was not for lavish spending. Banerjee said if there were unspent funds in one department towards the close of a financial year, another department could use it for something important.
She said the Centre was not giving enough funds to Bengal and the government had debts to the tune of Rs 45,000 crore. Under the circumstances, cost-cutting was absolutely necessary, she said.
Sources said that the meeting and the move had been necessitated especially under the backdrop of BJP president Amit Shah’s visit last week when he had made allegations that the Centre was offering funds to the state government but it wasn’t percolating to the grassroots as it was being siphoned off by supporters and leaders of the Trinamool Congress.
