Maha got ₹305,000 crore for infra in budget, says Fadnavis
Says MVA blaming Centre to hide its failure; state says he should speak about how Centre failed to help amid pandemic
MUMBAI: Maharashtra has been allocated more than ₹305,000 crore for various infrastructure and development projects, including railway, Metro and road projects, in the Union budget, leader of Opposition and former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said on Wednesday, responding to the state government’s criticism. He added the criticism of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Centre by the ruling parties in the state was to cover up their own failure.
Fadnavis said 328 road projects have been given ₹133,255 crore, irrigation projects have allocation of ₹4,000 crore, while 16 new railway projects worth ₹7,107 crore and admeasuring 2,000km have been allocated for the state. “The Damanganga-pinjal project has been given ₹3,000 crore, water supply project has been allocated ₹1,133 crore, while the drought-affected areas of Marathwada and Vidarbha have been given ₹1,200 crore.
Metro line-3 in Mumbai has an allocation of ₹1,832 crore, ₹3,195 crore for Pune Metro, ₹5,976 crore for Nagpur and ₹2,092 crore for Nashik Metro lines,” he said.
Fadnavis said many leaders and ministers from the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) attacked the BJP and its government in the Centre without actual knowledge of the outlay.
He said the outlay of ₹42,044 crore for Maharashtra from devolution of taxes, ₹10,961 crore towards the finance commission grants is more than many other states. “The state has been complaining about the pending dues towards the compensation of the GST, but the computation of GST compensation is done in the month of July and the Centre has promised to pay all dues to the states,” he said.
Maharashtra Congress general secretary Sachin Sawant said, “Fadnavis should tell us why Maharashtra was neglected while announcing development of the fishing centres in budget speech, despite the state being fifth largest in fish production. During Fadnavis’s tenure, the International Finance Services Cetre was taken to Gujarat from
Mumbai. He is talking about the allocation of ₹3,00,000 crore, but he should also speak about the Centre’s failure to allocate more funds amid a pandemic. The Centre has also failed to release the dues against GST compensation.”
Meanwhile, Fadnavis slammed the MVA government for the delay in arrest of Sharjeel Usmani against whom Pune police registered a criminal case for his provocative speech at Elgar Parishad last month. “The state government has failed to arrest him, but its police have been detaining BJP workers for agitating against him,” he said.
Fadnavis also criticised the Uddhav Thackeray-led government for the home department’s announcement of probing the alleged pressure on Indian celebrities to tweet in response to the statements by international celebrities on farmers’ protest. Fadnavis said there was no provision in the law to take any action for the tweets, but the announcement by home minister Anil Deshmukh has exposed the state government’s mindset.
Fadnavis also said that ruling parties are scared of the election of the Assembly speaker after Nana Patole resigned from the post. He said that the MVA was worried it will be exposed on the floor for the reduction in the support by the legislators.