Kolkata: Bengal became the first state in India’s history to be awarded for four rural schemes in a single year. In MGNREGA, three awards, for outstanding performance of the state in convergence, livelihood augmentation and exceptional performance of Nadia and Coochbehar were given.

In spite of it,  the Centre slammed the state’s “poor performance”, said state panchayat and rural development minister Subrata Mukherjee on Tuesday. “Our performance negates the blame spread by the Centre against us. Our chief minister has paid a lot of importance to the development of rural Bengal as eight out of nine crore population hails from the villages. Bengal has performed the best in the country in so many schemes, which proves our seriousness in developing rural Bengal,” Mr Mukherjee said.

Mr Mukherjee slammed union minister of state for rural development Ram Kripal Yadav who visited Kolkata a few days back and said that construction of houses under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana in Howrah was extremely poor. “He had alleged that Bengal had not utilised funds of PMAY. Interestingly, it is the union minister of that concerned department who has awarded us for our outstanding performance,” the minister said.

Union panchayat minister Narendra Singh Tomar handed over the award to the team of officers from Bengal in Delhi.