As the Mamata Banerjee government tries to cash in on the Sachin mania that has gripped Kolkata ahead of the Master Blasters penultimate Test match at the Eden Gardens by organising a host of festivities,the Trinamool Congresss style of patronising sports,allegedly for political gains,has drawn flak from its political opponents. The TMC government has been doling out crore of rupees to thousands of small neighbourhood or para clubs for upgrading sporting infrastructure. But the Congress and Left Front called it a systematic purchase of political allegiance using taxpayers money. As there is no system of a government audit into the scheme,the Congress has now demanded that the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) be allowed to audit the scheme. We want a CAG audit and a full disclosure in the Assembly as to how many utilisation certificates have been received from the clubs that received government fund,and how the money was spent because this is the tax payers money,which has been diverted from other plan heads meant for development to fund this scheme, said state Congress president and Rajya Sabha MP Pradip Bhattacharya. The TMC government donated Rs 41 crore to close to 2,400 para clubs this year with most of them receiving Rs 2 lakh each. In the state budget for 2013-14,the allocation to sports department was more than doubled to Rs 113 crore,while for youth services department it was hiked by 20 per cent to Rs 120 crore the money to the scheme is channelised through these two departments. The TMC,which has been accusing the Centre of not helping the debt-ridden state government,plans to spend almost Rs 600 crore by 2016 on this scheme. Typically,these clubs are hangout zones for neighbourhood men,who are traditionally activated by local political machineries of all the parties. The TMC has dismissed the oppositions allegation of political patronising by the state government. If someone calls encouragement of sports and culture as patronising and politicising,then he is not in his right mind. We are proud to work towards reviving Bengals tradition in sports, TMC MP Derek OBrien told The Indian Express.
