BHUBANESWAR : Former Union minister and Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh on Monday hit out at the Narendra Modi government at the Centre for a steady decline in Central funding to Odisha.
As Prime Minister Narendra Modi embarked on his campaign tour in Odisha, Ramesh in a post in X, stated Odisha has suffered gross neglect at the hands of ‘Modi Sarkar’ as the Centre has reduced Central funding in recent years.
Jairam said as per CAG reports, Central transfers as percentage of revenue receipts have been consistently decreasing from 57 per cent in 2017-18 to 38 per cent in 2021-22. Similarly, CAG has noted that the state’s share of union taxes, as a percentage of revenue receipts of the state, has been continuously declining from 2018-19 to 2021-22. Grants under recommendation of the Fifteenth Finance Commission have also decreased recently.
He asked what happened to prime minister’s favourite slogan, ‘Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas’? Why is the prime minister neglecting the people of Odisha? Jairam said the Sitalapalli rail wagon factory has been in cold storage since it was sanctioned by the UPA government in 2013. He alleged the NDA government did not take up the project and dropped it in 2018. Jairam said when the current Railway Minister, a Rajya Sabha member from Odisha, took office, he promised to take up the project again.
An official of East Coast Railway (ECoR) had said the project would be implemented in PPP mode. However, there has been no progress in this much-awaited project till date, he said adding two other projects, Gopalpur-Rayagada and Rairakhole-Gopalpur railway line, have also suffered the same fate.