Talking to reporters at the Secretariat after a meeting with two senior officials of the Union Rural Development Ministry, he said, “No such conditions should be imposed due to which the rural poor are denied the right to get work for 100 days accorded to them by the NREG Act.”
He said video presentations were made before the officials who had come to hold discussions on the project.
The Central team held meetings with district-level officials, besides officers from the State Rural Development Department and also met West Bengal Chief Secretary and Mr. Rahman.
He said he submitted detailed accounts of its expenditure on the scheme which lately has been the subject matter of letters exchanged between the Chief Minister and the Prime Minister with the Union Minister of State for Rural Development, a Trinamool Congress member, maintaining that West Bengal was unable to spend money given to it by the Centre. Mr Rahman also contested some of the figures given by the Central team to the Press saying that these were not correct.
He said while the State favoured disbursal of funds in an equitable manner among the districts lest matters get politicised, the scheme stipulated that disbursal was to be according to amounts spent and with the total expenditure being mandatorily recorded through a management information system.
Mr Rahman, however, said that district officials have been told to tone up their efficiency so that the scheme can be implemented well.