West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today greeted the people saying a panchayat of the state has emerged as the best in the country.
The central government has declared Digambarpur gram panchayat in South 24 Parganas district as the best panchayat in the country.
"We feel proud that we have the best panchayat. We are proud that our panchayats have worked well. I congratulate the people for that," Banerjee told reporters at the state secretariat.
Of the 2.5 lakh gram panchayats in the country, the central government had selected 1000 and watched their function, state Panchayat Minister Subrata Mukherjee told PTI.
"Digambarpur under Pathar Pratima block has emerged the best among those 1000 gram panchayats," Mukherjee said. He announced this after getting permission from the State Election Commission as the model code of conduct is force in the state due to the coming panchayat election.
"Some other panchayats of the state also got other awards," he said.
The chief minister said, "We have already topped in job creation under the NREGA project. West Bengal has not only topped in rural employment generation, but the state has also been able to reduce the unemployment rate by 40 per cent."
The chief minister said Union Finance Secretary Hasmukh Adhia on April 13 wrote to the state Chief Secretary Malay Kumar De congratulating the state government on West Bengal's improved performance in GST collections.
"As per as West Bengal is concerned, the revenue gap has come down from 33.4 per cent in August to (-3 per cent) in March 2018. The revenue shortfall in West Bengal has been coming down steadily but there seems to have been a spike of a major gain in March where suddenly your revenue deficit has now become revenue surplus," Adhia wrote to the state Chief Secretary.
The overall revenue gap in SGST collection for the whole country in July was 28.3 per cent, which has come down to 17.9 per cent in March.
"However, there have been spikes in between in the revenue gap in the month of November, December and February. It is important for all of us to bring down the revenue gap figure steadily with better compliance and better supervision," Adhia said.
Compensation from the Centre is linked to revenue deficit for a state after introduction of GST, he said.
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