'Centre stalling 3 new airports in Bengal, not releasing funds out of jealousy': Mamata Banerjee

Kolkata: The setting up of three new airports in West Bengal is being delayed for an indefinite period as the Centre is not giving permission, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee alleged on Thursday. "Three new airports are proposed to be set up in West Bengal at Balurghat, Cooch Behar, and Malda, all in north Bengal. The state government has also earmarked land for these three proposed new airports. But the process is stuck as the Union Ministry of Civil Aviation is not providing us with the necessary permission," she said while chairing an administrative review meeting for West Midnapore district at Kharagpur town.

Banerjee also alleged that the Union government is not deliberately releasing funds under different centrally sponsored schemes "out of sheer jealousy". "West Bengal is topper in implementation of different centrally sponsored schemes. This has made the Union government jealous and it deliberately stopped releasing funds under different central schemes," she said.

She said that she will not wait for the mercy of the Union government any more. "We will complete our pending projects from the development funds allotted to MPs and MLAs," she said.

Refuting her BJP`s national Vice President, Dilip Ghosh claimed that the central funds were stopped because of blatant misuse of funds and the inability of the state government to provide utilisation certificates of past expenditure. "In many cases, the names of the central projects were changed so that the state government can project it as a state project. As usual the chief minister is trying to mislead people by disseminating wrong information," he alleged.