As Bengal’s debt piles up, state govt applies brakes on spending

Initially, the government had an estimate that nearly 2 crore beneficiaries will register for ‘Lakshmir Bhandar' project but so far, the government has received 1.63 crore applications of which 1.52 crore have been approved. Nearly 7 lakh applications have been rejected. The government has spent more than Rs 800 crore on the project and going by the figure the finance department estimates that the state government will have to cough up another Rs 5,600 crore which might, in turn, lead to a staggering figure in a full financial year.