Low misappropriation of Amphan relief; will disburse funds to those left out: West Bengal CM

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said 6,000 people were found to have been genuinely deprived of funds distributed by her government for repair of houses devastated by Cyclone Amphan and state will transfer money to ir accounts within next three days.

"We had conducted a query and received 40,000 complaints out of which 26,000 were already re in DM's list. We have found that 6,000 were deprived and to m funds will be transferred by next three days. re are 6,000 ors whose complaints were found to be fake," she said.

She also said very few people were involved in misappropriation of funds.

"Our only mistake was that we tried to quickly release funds to those affected by cyclone...That's when a few people tried to take advant of it," Banerjee said.

"Only 0.5 per cent and some tried to do that (misapproproation)," she said. Banerjee, who had earlier held erstwhile Left Front government in West Bengal responsible for developing a 'mechanism' of stealing funds meant for public, furr said, "That is reason erstwhile Left Front never used to distribute reliefs".

state government has already frozen bank accounts of several people in Nadia district who have received similar amounts of money as part of compensation pack of state government though ir houses were t damd by cyclone. maximum number of complaints regarding irregularities of distribution of compensation has been received from Purba Medinipore district. Similar complaints were received from rth 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas, Nadia and Howrah districts, secretariat sources said.

Incidentally, around five BDOs have been showcaused by state government while several Trinamool Congress leaders in se districts have been suspended for ir alleged involvement in this connection. state government has released an amount of Rs 6,800 crore as a part of compensation for those whose houses were damd by Amphan.

More than 10 lakh people have received compensation to rebuild ir houses but re have been complaints about irregularities from thousands of people in affected districts. Some people had alleged that relatives and friends of ruling Trinamool Congress leaders in districts have received money to rebuild ir homes though ir houses were t devastated by cyclone.