Bash in the time of Saradha curse worries govt

Calcutta, May 6: The Saradha scandal has cast a shadow on the Mamata Banerjee government’s plan to mark its two years in power by organising exhibitions and cultural programmes in the districts as lower-rung Trinamul leaders are wary of any show of pomp immediately after the payment default crisis. The impact of the lack of political will — mandatory for the success of such programmes in the districts — is apparent as only two out of 30 such exhibitions could be inaugurated on time. “People have lost their life’s savings in schemes floated by the Saradha Group with which some of our ministers, MPs and MLAs had close contacts. Now, if we organise exhibitions along with cultural programmes, there is bound to be a backlash,” said a Trinamul MLA, explaining the reason behind his lack of interest. According to the plan drawn up by the chief secretary — and communicated to the respective departments through a circular on May 2 — the 16-day show of respective departments should have started by May 5 and continued till May 21. Yesterday, the North Bengal development department and the panchayat and rural development departments inaugurated their shows at Siliguri and Singur, respectively. “The two exhibitions that were inaugurated yesterday were not fully ready, while the extent of preparedness at other places is far from satisfactory…. They were thrown open only to meet the deadline,” said a senior state government official. Not just the lack of interest from districts, there has not been any proactive follow-up from Writers’ as well. “There has been just a circular, but there was no follow-up meeting to check the preparedness of the departments…. Senior officials such as the chief secretary have been busy fire-fighting the Saradha case,” said an official. As part of the chief minister’s plans to decentralise celebration — last year’s Pragati Utsav at Milon Mela grounds had turned out to be a damp squib — the exhibitions were supposed to travel to districts, where local artistes were scheduled to perform in the evening. Ministers from the districts were given the responsibility to organise the programme at the home district as the focus was on involving local people. For instance, the agriculture department has been asked to set up an exhibition in Burdwan as the minister of the department, Malay Ghatak, is from the district. For Jungle Mahal, the venue is Midnapore, the turf of Sukumar Hansda, the minister in charge of Paschimanchal affairs. The backward class welfare show will be held at Bangaon, the home district of minister in charge Upen Biswas. “It is true that the district leaders are not showing any eagerness to hold the programmes and that’s why I couldn’t inaugurate my department’s exhibition yesterday…. The venue is not ready and I am yet to sign up artistes for the cultural shows every evening,” said a Trinamul minister. There, however, was no funds crunch for the departments as the chief minister’s office had given the go-ahead to spend liberally from their departmental resources. The Telegraph has learnt that the budgets for the shows range between Rs 35 lakh and Rs 70 lakh. “Some of our party workers have reservations about the expenditure as they feel that it will draw unnecessary criticism and the money would have been better spent had it been used to return the money to the duped depositors. I also feel the same way,” said a minister. The chief minister has set up a Rs 500-crore relief fund for depositors with the promise of protecting the “small and medium” depositors after Saradha went bust. While the relief fund has raised hopes among a section of duped depositors, it has pushed the local Trinamul leaders the edge as they are aware that the kitty will be insufficient to tackle the crisis. “Now people are expecting that the government will compensate them for the loss… And their hopes rest on us. The more we interact with local people, the more we hear about the demand from depositors. Handling this expectation will become a problem,” said a first-time MLA from a district.