However, the Ghatal Master Plan is still unfulfilled and Dev’s non-fulfillment of his promise is now being used against him by his rival and Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Hiranmoy Chattopadhyay, himself a film star. It has become a political weapon. until the end of the campaign. “He (Dev) has been an MP for 10 years but has not contributed anything for the constituency. The Ghatal Master Plan is now a ‘Modi ki guarantee’ and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government will definitely do it,” Chattopadhyay, better known as Hiran, said during a late-night padayatra along with Bharatiya Janata Party stalwart Suvendu Adhikari. At Panshukla Bazaar. “We are also committed to rail connectivity between Ghatal and Panshukla.”
Ghatal Master Plan is a mega project conceived in 1959 to save Ghatal and surrounding low-lying areas, located at the foot of the Chhota Nagpur plateau, from annual floods. Overflowing rain-fed rivers such as Shilavati, Damodar, Rupnarayan and Dwarakeshwar, which originate from the plateau, inundate numerous villages every monsoon, destroying crops and displacing people. The project was approved in 1980 and the foundation stone was laid in 1982. A year after the Trinamool Congress came to power, in 2012, the state government sent a detailed project report to the Centre estimating the total cost at nearly Rs 1,200 crore. The BJP-led coalition government subsequently changed the funding ratio between the Centre and state government from 75%:25% to 50%:50%. However, due to non-allocation of funds, the project has yet to take off, even as the state and federal governments continued to blame each other.
Dev did not want to continue in politics as he could not get the Ghatal Master Plan implemented, but Mamata Banerjee announced that the state government would take on the mega project itself rather than waiting. He said he only agreed to run for election later. Funds from the Center.
“They make such promises before elections, but nothing happens,” says Ananta Doroi, a resident of Nimpata, a village on the banks of the Siravati river. Ananta and his brother Pramata have already started repairing the wooden boat, which they will have to rely on again during the upcoming monsoon. “Where will we get the funds to implement it?” tweeted Shashanka Das, a former teacher, after a TMC rally in Keshpur.
However, that skepticism is drowned out by the cheers for stardom.
