Lucknow: The Congress on Tuesday charged the
Mayawati government in Uttar Pradesh with spending nearly Rs
14,000 crore on setting up parks and memorials in the name of
Dalit icons.
A large portion of Central funds was also diverted to
these projects, Congress leader Akhilesh Pratap Singh said
here.
"Between July 2007 and August `09, the Rashtriya Nirman
Nigam alone has spent over Rs 4436.46 crore on memorials and
parks set up in the name of Dr Ambedkar and Kanshi Ram," he
said.
The state government had already spent Rs 14,000 crore
and, in all, planned to spend more than Rs 25,000 crore on
such projects, Singh said.
The Congress leader alleged the construction work on
these projects did not conform to the Master Plan.
"Almost one-third of the state budget has been spent
on stone and construction works," he said.
The party would stage a protest in New Delhi on April
19 against the "diversion" of central funds, chairman of the
RTI cell of the party Shailendra Singh said.
PTI
