Statesman News Service
MALDA, 25 NOV: The Railways owe the cash strapped English Bazaar Municipality Rs 13 crore in service charge. The EBM authority expects clearance of the same to undertake certain development projects and also meet up due electricity bills.
“We have not received a single paisa from the Railway in service charges since 1990. The Railways owe us nearly Rs 13 crore,” said the EBM vice chairman Mr Dulal Sarkar today. He is also a Trinamul state committee member.
“We are preparing a record of the amount the Railways owe the EBM since 1990 to draw the attention of the railway minister Miss Mamata Banerjee and would approach the railway authority to clear the amount,” Mr Sarkar said from Kolkata over phone.
Failing to run the civic body properly due to fund crunch, the EBM chairman Mr Narendranath Tiwari, a Congress leader, has asked his deputy to inform the railway minister and collect the amount.
Severe cash crunch has stopped the civic body from renovating some defunct pumping stations for water supply.
The EBM vice chairman claimed that they had approached Miss Mamata Banerjee on the subject when she was railway minister in the NDA government.
“The dialogue between the Railways and the civic body had begun for payments but the dialogue was discontinued.
We then approached subsequent railway ministers including Mr Lalu Parsad Yadav but nothing materialized,” he added.
Although the EBM authority had approached all former railway divisional managers in Malda for payments, it has not approached the new DRM Mr M K Mathur yet.
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