Mantralaya unhappy over fund allocation

Dalal Street is upbeat after Finance Minister P Chidambaram's third budget, with the market continuing the bull run taking even the hike in securities transaction tax in its stride. But there is marked feeling of dejection at Mantralya, the headquarters of the Maharashtra government.

"Out of the provision of Rs 6,250 crore for National Urban Renewal Mission (Nurm) programme, Maharashtra will get only around Rs 700 crore. This is below our expectations as we were expecting around Rs 1,200 core for the state in this project," said a senior official.

The amount to be allocated for Mumbai is not yet known. Also, Pune, Nagpur, Aurangabad and Nanded are in the fray with their infrastructure projects.

Mumbai's only project that has been considered by the central government is metro railway. "We were hopeful that we might receive some grant for East-West corridor, Bandra-Worli and Navasheva-Shivri sealink projects," said the official.

"Maharashtra can not be compared with other states on same yardsticks. It is only here that 40 per cent of the state population resides in the urban centres. This is the reason why the state should have got a larger share," he added.

The state never received Rs 1,000 crore, which Chidambaram had promised for Mumbai in his last budget speech.

"We demanded that it should be granted Rs 1,800 crore in the aftermath of floods which ravaged Mumbai, Konkan and parts of western Maharashtra. But the finance minister did not meet our demand," said the official. "Maharashtra was also pushing for either undertaking mega irrigation projects or grants up to 50 per cent of the project cost under Bharat Nirman programme. But it seems that we have failed in our attempt to convince the Union government. Had the centre accepted our logic it would have ensured the speedy completion of mega irrigation projects on time, which otherwise get dragged for year's owing to paucity of funds," said an irrigation department official.