Ramesh, Gujarat govt spar over water conservation programme

‘All the figures I have quoted are in the public domain.’

January 02, 2014 06:44 pm | Updated November 16, 2021 07:34 pm IST - New Delhi

Firing a fresh salvo at Narendra Modi, Union Minister Jairam Ramesh on Thursday said the Gujarat Chief Minister had been "badly misinformed" about his government's spending of central funds for the water conservation programme in drought-hit areas of the state.

Mr. Ramesh’s attack came a day after Mr. Modi’s government dismissed the "factually incorrect" claims made by the Rural Development Minister asserting that the state had failed to spend a chunk of the funds provided by the Centre for implementing the Integrated Watershed Management Programme (IWMP).

Further, Mr. Ramesh rejected the counter charges made by the Gujarat Government, saying that all the figures that he had mentioned in his letter to Mr. Modi on the issue of utilisation of central fund for IWMP in the state was not "manufactured" by the Rural Development Ministry.

In his fresh letter to the Gujarat Chief Minister, Mr. Ramesh also said that the figures given by him in his earlier letter were based on utilisation certificates submitted by the state government.

"I am sorry that you have been badly misinformed. All the figures that I have quoted in my letter are in the public domain and are available on our website. We have not manufactured them. They are there for anybody to see," he said.

In his earlier letter, Mr. Ramesh had claimed that under the IWMP, the Centre had, so far, released Rs 702 crore and the unspent balance available with the state was nearly Rs 409 crore.

"In Gujarat, the cost of sanctioned projects between 2009-10 to 2013-14 is Rs 3,178 crore... Had Gujarat implemented its IWMP projects as it had committed to, it could have got another Rs 407 crore from the Centre over the last four years," the letter stated.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.