Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday to seek an interest waiver on the repayment of huge debt. "I shall meet the PM tomorrow to secure our rights. I am not going to Delhi seeking alms. The state should get its rights," she said on Sunday while inaugurating a flyover on the VIP Road on way to the airport for Delhi.
Banerjee is accompanied by a delegation comprising, among others, Finance Minister Amit Mitra and Chief Secretary Sanjay Mitra. "We have waited for over three-and-a-half years and had given a test of our patience. We have already paid over Rs 1 lakh crore debt so far. Also, we waited so long till the reccommendation of the 14th Finance Commission," she said.
On February 25, Banerjee had written to the Prime Minister seeking an appointment and urging him to consider the debt waiver immediately. "We have long been pursuing with the Centre for a waiver of the huge debt burden left upon us by the previous government in West Bengal. We have waited for more than three-and-a-half years with no results," the Chief Minister said.
She said the deduction of about Rs 28,000 crore every year towards repayment of loans taken by the previous government has been increasing. In an apparent message to some rebel leaders in her party, Banerjee said, "Those who do not work, only get themselves involved in conspiracy," while calling upon her party colleagues and workers to help expedite all development works in the state.
Banerjee inaugurated a two-km-long Rs 313-crore flyover between Krishnapur and Raghunathpur over Baguiati. Once a loyalist of former Party General Secretary Mukul Roy, Sabyasachi Dutta, MLA from Rajarhat, were with the CM right from the inauguration of flyover to the airport. Dutta even touched her feet before she left for Delhi.
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