Continue with development even after poll announcement: Mamata to DMs

KOLKATA: Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday asked the district magistrates not to ignore ongoing development activities in the state even after announcement of election dates. Mamata held a meeting with her ministers, chief and home secretaries and all the district magistrates at Town Hall here to review performance of her government and ministers.

After holding the meeting, the chief minister told reporters that she was pleased with most of her departments as they had performed superbly. "I also asked the district magistrates to continue the ongoing development projects even after announcement of election dates. I don't want our ongoing development works to suffer due to elections," Mamata told after the meeting.

The chief minister is extremely satisfied with the performance of transport, health and fisheries departments, but she is happy with overall performance of her government. She claimed that budgetary allocation for 58 department for the FY 2015-16 was Rs 49956.54 crore of which Rs 36,257.98 crore had already been released by the state's finance department which enabled her government to carry forward several development schemes effectively.

She also claimed that the Union government had blocked Rs 10,000 crore which was due to her government for carrying out several development projects and still, her government had achieved remarkable success in implementing various pro-people projects and schemes.

"Funds sanctioned for several development schemes remained unutilised during the regime of previous Left Front government. But we are very keen to work for the people and for that we are sincerely running various development schemes and my finance department is taking no time in releasing funds for such work," Mamata claimed, adding that development was a continuous process and she did not want any deferment of such projects even during elections.

Earlier on January 21, the chief minister who is also the Home minister, reshuffled the state police administration by transferring 183 police personnel who are holding positions ranging between inspector of police and circle inspectors.