BHUBANESWAR: Union Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas on Sunday criticised Chief
Minister Naveen Patnaik for demanding PAN card exemption for tribal people on bank deposit above Rs 50,000.
Accusing the Chief Minister of double standard in the issue of demonitisation, the Union Minister said after supporting the extraordinary move of Prime Minister Narendra Modi now he has started making unreasonable demands.
"The Chief Minister's request to the Prime Minister for allowing exchange (of demonitised notes) facility in District Central Cooperative Banks (DCCBs) and exemption of PAN card numbers for traibals
seem to be a well thought out plan to convert black money to white money through party workers," Pradhan said at a BJP function here.
Pradhan questioned the state government's motive when it claimed that nine lakh farmers are beneficiaries of the directed benefit transfer scheme launched in February. If payment is possible through digital platform, there would be no problem for these farmers to deposit old currency notes in their accounts.
He further said that there would be no problem for payment of minimum support price to the farmers during paddy procurement as their dues will be transferred to their account and they can withdarw Rs 25,000 from their account in a week.
While the Prime Minister is trying his best to empower the panchayats by directly sending funds to gram panchayats, the state government's claim that the death of children in Markangiri is due to consumption of Bana Cahkunda seeds and not for Japanese Encephalitis is not only ridiculous but insensitive. This is an attempt to shift the blame, he said.
Writing to the Prime Minister twice in the last week, the Chief Minister had demanded review of RBI decision to debar DCCBs from exchanging old current notes and exemption of PAN Card numbers on deposit above Rs. 50,000 for tribals.