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After Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Monday accused the Nitish Kumar government of not properly utilising Central funds.
"The Centre has provided crores and crores of rupees to the state under various centrally-sponsored schemes. But it is unfortunate that there are reports of corruption," Gandhi told an election rally in Kishanganj district of Bihar.
Criticising the development claim of Nitish Kumar, she said, "We don't know what happened to the funds the Centre provided to the state" and asked the people as to how many hours they received electricity and what happened to the money earmarked for education and health sectors.
"Students have to go outside the state for better education, opportunity and also for ensuring treatment of diseases," she said.
Nitish Kumar retaliates
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, meanwhile, accused Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of trying to shift the blame on the state government for "failure" of central agencies on the fund utilisation issue.
"It is unfortunate that a person like Dr Singh is placing distorted facts before the people and seeking to blame the NDA government for the failure of central agencies in utilisation of central assistance," he told an election meeting in Paroo constituency.
Kumar said the erstwhile NDA government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee had in 2002 decided to provide a special package of Rs 1000 crore under the Samvikas Yojana every year to compensate the losses incurred by Bihar after the mineral-rich plateau region went to Jharkhand.
He said that the provisions to this effect were made in the Bihar Reorganisation Act and the Planning Commission was asked to implement the schemes through central agencies. The Bihar government had no hand in it, he said.
"The Prime Minister should correct his statement that the special provision of Rs 1000 crore every year was made from 2004. It was actually made from 2002 and Congress has nothing to take credit for this," he said.