Modi govt misusing central funds alleges Congress

Ahmedabad, Oct 6 (UNI) The Congress today alleged that the BJP government in Gujarat was misusing central funds to suit its political agenda and had hijacked some of the central schemes by simply renaming them.

Jayantilal Parmar, spokesperson of Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC), told UNI here that the central funds, including funds issued by the HRD Department for the Continuing Education Programme (CEP) or the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan(SSA), have been misused with impunity by the state government.

Mr Parmar said he had drawn the attention of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and the CBI director for an inquiry into the scam.

He said Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation was supposed to implement SSA through its Ahmedabad Municipal School Board (AMSB). But the scheme is being run through a trust named Ahmedabad Mahanagar Shaksharta Samiti (AMSS), under the AMSB, in which the mayor, municipal commissioner, chairman, school board, AO of school board, DEO of education department are the members. The scheme is being implemented by naming it as Nirantar Shikshan Yojna.

When the Centre gives financial aid, neither the scheme nor its purpose or its name can be changed. But the government has even changed the name of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan to Nirantar Shikshan Yojna, Mr Parmar claimed. Even in many other cases of central schemes, Chief Minister Narendra Modi's government has played with the rules and traditions of such aid. ''For example, a central scheme Rajiv Gandhi Vidhutikaran Yojna for electricity generation has been changed to Jyotirgram Yojna.'' As for the SSA programme, the Centre gives 100 per cent grant for the first three years and for the next two years it is 50 per cent while in the last five years, of the 10 year scheme, the state has to allocate 100 per cent on its own. What is happening is that in the very beginning of the programme, the state has played mischief,'' HIS alleged.

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