'Kitty party : congress alleges corrupt practice

The Congress on Friday once again attempted to raise the question on corruption in the distribution of quake-kits to farmers. Congress MLA Ibrahim Mandhra alleged corruption to the tune of Rs 15 –30 crores in the distribution of the kits and claimed that the pesticides and seeds that were given to the farmers were of an inferior quality.

The charges of corruption, however, were disallowed by the Speaker Dhirubhai Shah on the grounds that the supplementary question had no relevance with the question under discussion, as to the number of applications received by the state government under Package No. 2 and 3 from the quake-affected farmers.

Minister of state for agriculture Bechar Bhadani said the state government had received 3,441 applications under package-2 and 5,603 applications under package-3 for farmers of which 684 and 523 applications for package-2 and 3 respectively had been approved and Rs 22.80 lakhs had been disbursed under package-2.

Leader of the Opposition Amarsinh Chaudhary sought to know how long the state government will take in processing the large number of pending applications since very little time will remain for cultivation as the monsoon will soon end.

Replying to Mr. Chaudhary’s question, Mr. Bhadani said many of the applications had been received after June 15 and they were being processed by the water resources department. He assured the House that pending applications would be approved as soon as possible.

Republished from The Asian Age