Mamata seeks Modi's intervention for complete debt waiver

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and urged a complete waiver of the state's debt of Rs. 2.74 lakh crore.

Banerjee who has long been ruing the huge debt burden "inherited from the erstwhile Left Front government", met Modi at the Raj Bhavan and handed him a seven-page memorandum seeking his personal intervention in the matter.

"For the sake of growth, development and empowerment of the common people of the state, I again urge you to kindly give the state a complete debt waiver for it to escape from the veritable debt trap," Banerjee, also the Trinamool Congress supremo, said in the memorandum.

She said the total debt by the end of the financial year 2014-15 will be around Rs 2,74,800.12 crore.

"The present government after coming to power has taken a debt of Rs.82,964.5 crore, out of which Rs.76,346.78 crore was taken only to service the debt obligations of debt taken by the previous government.

"In view of the highly debt-stressed condition of the state, West Bengal is caught in a vicious debt trap due to debt burden left by the previous Left Front government," she said.

Seeking the prime minister's "personal intervention", Banerjee urged Modi for early action in the interest of the common people of the state and the country at large.