A day after targeting the BJD Government for not providing adequate security cover to him during his campaigning for the panchayat elections, Union Minister Ramkripal Yadav on Friday slammed the Naveen Patnaik regime for ‘sabotaging’ Central funds meant for the poor and running State schemes with it.
Speaking at a Press conference at the State BJP office here, Yadav said penury continues to grip Odisha people due to inefficiency and inertness of the Naveen Patnaik Government.
“Even as the Narendra Modi Government has been giving huge amounts of funds for development of poor people under different schemes, the State Government here has failed to utilise them properly and even diverting funds to run its own schemes,” said the Union Minister of State for Rural Development.
Stating that the Centre had given Rs 2,217.39 crore for construction of 2.96 lakh pucca houses under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana in 2016-17, he said the State has so far spent only 21.27 per cent of this fund. He said the State Government is hoodwinking people by saying that it has constructed 10 lakh pucca houses in two and a half years while only 3 lakh houses constructed in three years only.
He said the State Government owes a reply to people as to where the PMAY funds are going. “Either the contractors are workers of the BJD who are working as agents of the State Government or there is a nexus between them. The matter should be brought under the purview of investigation,” Yadav said.
“After moving around the State since yesterday, what I found is the people of Odisha want a change,” Kripal stated.