Gogoi Asks Sonowal For White Paper On NDA Fund Allocation To Assam
21 December, Guwahati
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has demanded Union Minister of state for sports and youth affairs Sarbananda Sonowal to come out with a white paper as to what the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre had done for Assam during its one and a half years of tenure.
In a statement here, Gogoi asked Sonowal to come out with a fact sheet as to what the Union government had done for Assam, instead of unleashing a misinformation campaign against the state government.
He reiterated that the state government would publish within a fortnight a slew of development initiatives taken by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during the 10-year tenure of the UPA Government.
The BJP must also come out with a fact sheet as to what the previous and the present BJP-led NDA governments have done for Assam so that the people can judge things in proper perspectives, he added.
Gogoi asked Sonowal to come out with the exact allocation of funds the BJP-led government had given to Assam on floods and erosion, MGNREGA, IAY and other development schemes.
Not to speak of special Central assistance, the state is yet to receive a single penny under the National Disaster Response Fund except Rs 430.97 crore as Central share of SDRF in 2014-15 which is due to every state, he said, alleging that Sonowal did not exert pressure on the Centre to release the due funds to the state.
The Chief Minister further alleged that Sonowal also did not pressurise the Centre when it deprived Assam and the North Eastern States of the Special Category Status, suspended NEIIPP and Backward Region Grant Fund. Gogoi dared Sonowal to repudiate the facts and figures submitted by him on various issues enlisted in a memorandum to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on December 16.
The CM asked the Union MoS to come out with the allocation and sanction of funds for the 12th South Asian Games slated for February 2016 in Assam and Meghalaya. Though the State Government has submitted a demand for Rs 141.73 crore for smooth and successful conduct of the Games from the Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports headed by Sonowal, it has so far received only Rs 22.70 crore, he said. Gogoi also questioned the minister as to what his Ministry had done for development of sports infrastructure in the state. Today the South Asian Games are going to be staged only because of the state-of-the-art sports infrastructure that had come up during the 33rd National Games we hosted in 2007.
Otherwise, staging the South Asian Games would have remained a pipe dream, he added. The Chief Minister alleged that Sonowal did not do anything worthwhile for establishment of skill development centres in the development blocks under the Multi Disciplinary Skill Development Programme when he was the Minister for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.